Project 10073 Record Card and Related Correspondence — Paul Villa Saucer Photos

This document archive details the investigation by the U.S. Air Force's Foreign Technology Division and Project Blue Book into a series of photographs taken by Paul Villa in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 16, 1963. Villa, a mechanic, claimed to have had telepathic contact with extraterrestrial beings since childhood and alleged that these beings allowed him to photograph their spacecraft. The photographs, which were widely circulated in UFO research publications and even wire services, depicted a disc-shaped object with tripod landing gear. The Air Force conducted a formal photo analysis, documented in Report NR 64-43, which concluded that the photographs were a hoax. Analysts determined that the object in the photos was only 20 inches in diameter and 7 inches high, based on its spatial relationship to tree branches in the foreground. Major Hector Quintanilla, Jr., of the Aerial Phenomena Branch, explicitly stated that the case was considered a hoax, likely perpetrated for financial gain. The archive includes correspondence from J. Allen Hynek, who expressed surprise that the experts at Eastman Kodak did not identify the hoax earlier, and noted that the photographs failed to meet basic criteria for authenticity. Despite the official Air Force dismissal, the documents show that Villa continued to claim contact and produced further sets of photographs in 1965, which were also promoted by UFO organizations. The archive also contains various other unrelated sighting reports from 1963, including accounts from New Zealand, Minnesota, and Illinois, which were compiled by the Air Force for informational purposes.