Green Fireballs - Early Green Fireballs

Early Green Fireballs

Some early reports came from late November 1948, but were at first dismissed as military green flares. Then on the night of December 5, 1948, two separate plane crews, one military (Air Force C-47, Captain Goede, 9:27 p.m., 10 miles (16 km) east of Albuquerque) and one civilian (DC-3, Pioneer Flight 63, 9:35 p.m., east of Las Vegas, New Mexico), each asserted that they had seen a "green ball of fire"; the C-47 crew had seen an identical object 22 minutes before near Las Vegas. The military crew described the light as like a huge green meteor except it arched upwards and then flat instead of downwards The civilian crew described the light as having a trajectory too low and flat for a meteor, at first abreast and ahead of them but then appearing to come straight at them on a collision course, forcing the pilot to swerve the plane at which time the object appeared full moon size.

In addition, on the same night, a dozen green fireballs were seen traveling generally north to south between 7:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. by security guards at military installations in the vicinity of Albuquerque and Las Vegas, New Mexico. The sightings near Albuquerque were at Sandia base, a highly sensitive installation where atomic bombs were assembled near Kirtland Air Force Base. The next night, a similar green light was again spotted for a few seconds over Sandia base.

The following day, the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) at Kirtland AFB began an official inquiry, fearing the fireballs might be related to espionage and sabotage.

Two AFOSI investigators — both of whom were experienced pilots themselves — witnessed a green fireball while flying an aircraft the evening of December 8. They said it was about 2,000 feet (610 m) above their craft, roughly resembling the green flares commonly used by the Air Force, though "much more intense" and apparently "considerably brighter." The light seemed to burst into full brilliance almost instantaneously. Their report stated that the light was "definitely larger and more brilliant than a shooting star, meteor or flare." The light lasted only a few seconds, moving "almost flat and parallel to the earth". The light's "trajectory then dropped off rapidly" leaving "a trail of fragments reddish orange in color" which then fell towards the ground.

The next day, AFOSI consulted Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, an astronomer from the University of New Mexico and a world renowned meteor expert who had previously worked on top-secret military projects. LaPaz himself saw a "green fireball" on December 12, which was also seen at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, enabling LaPaz to determine the trajectory using triangulation. From this LaPaz discovered that the center of the trajectory was straight over Los Alamos.

In a classified letter to the Air Force on December 20, LaPaz wrote that the object moved far too slowly to have been a meteor and left no "trail of sparks or dust cloud" as would be typical of meteors flying at low altitudes. Other anomalous characteristics were the intense lime-green color (completely unlike the Geminids meteor shower being observed at the same time), low altitude of only 8–10 miles yet exhibiting no sound, flat rather than arced trajectory, and turning on and off like a light switch. Later, he was to add that the sightings were confined almost entirely to northern New Mexico, and no fragments were ever found despite extensive searches using triangulation techniques that had previously been successful in locating meteor fragments.

LaPaz suggested that security patrols at Los Alamos should attempt to photograph the green fireballs. However, the duration of the fireballs was so brief (1–5 seconds) and the onset so unexpected that photography was unsuccessful. Other green fireball sightings occurred over Los Alamos on December 11, 13, 14, 20, 28, and January 6, 1949, raising the level of concern of security and military intelligence. The green fireball on December 20 was most remarkable in that it was seen to change direction, quite impossible for a meteor. Two security guards saw it first descending at a 45-degree angle, then leveling off at an altitude of about two miles (3 km). Even though at most only a few miles distant, no sound was heard, just as with the other green fireballs.

On January 13, 1949, the following message was sent to the Director of Army Intelligence from Fourth Army Headquarters in Texas: "Agencies in New Mexico are greatly concerned . . .Some foreign power making 'sensing shots' with some super-stratosphere device designed to be self-disintegrating . . . The phenomena the result of radiological warfare experiments by a foreign power . . . the rays may be lethal or might be . . . the cause of the plane crashes that have occurred recently . . . These incidents are of such great importance, especially as they are occurring in the vicinity of sensitive installations, that a scientific board be sent . . . to study the situation."

On January 30 the brightest and most widely seen green fireball sighting occurred near Roswell, New Mexico. The next day, the FBI was informed by Army and Air Force intelligence that flying saucers and the fireballs were classified top secret. LaPaz interviewed hundreds of witnesses, with help from the FBI and military intelligence, and again tried to recover fragments by triangulating a trajectory, but was again unsuccessful.

After his own sighting and interviewing numerous witnesses, LaPaz had concluded that "green fireballs" were an artificial phenomenon. On February 8 he met with Dr. Joseph Kaplan, a UCLA geophysicist and member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. Kaplan, himself a meteor expert, agreed they could not be conventional meteorite falls and informed LaPaz that he knew of no secret military projects that could explain the fireballs. He found LaPaz's data on the fireballs unsettling and felt an investigation was needed in the name of national security.

LaPaz's informal scientific study for the Air Force quickly became formal, being called the "Conference on Aerial Phenomena", convening at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in mid-February to review the data. The assembled people—both military personnel and civilian scientists—were informed by LaPaz that the fireballs were not the result of any secret military project, according to Dr. Kaplan. LaPaz reiterated that he was absolutely convinced the green fireballs were not conventional fireballs or meteorites. Dr. Edward Teller felt they could not be material objects because they made no sound and suggested they might be some unknown atmospheric electrical phenomena. In any event, he thought they could not be foreign probes of some kind.

The scientists felt that a network of instrument stations should be established to photograph and analyze the fireballs. Despite the recommendation and the continuation of the green fireballs at a rate of about half a dozen a month, LaPaz and AFOSI oddly encountered both resistance and apathy from Air Force authorities responsible for setting up such a network.

By April 1949 similar sights were reported over a nuclear-weapons storage facility at Fort Hood in Texas. The intrusions were deemed so serious that, unlike the Air Force, the Army quickly set up an observation network. Sightings continued through August, the most spectacular being on June 6 when a hovering orange light, 30 to 70 feet (21 m) across and a mile in the air, was spotted. Finally, it started moving in level flight and then burst into small particles.

On July 24 a green fireball was observed falling close to Socorro, New Mexico. Dust samples were collected at the School of Mines there and were found to contain large particles of copper. LaPaz found this highly significant, since copper burns with the same yellow-green color characteristic of the green fireballs. He also noted that if the copper particles came from the green fireballs, then they could not be conventional meteorites, since copper was never found in dust of meteoric origin. LaPaz suggested that further air and ground samples be taken in areas where the fireballs were seen.

At the same time, AFOSI informed LaPaz on investigations of "anomalous luminous phenomena" between early June and early August. Many of the green fireballs were now descending on vertical paths, whereas initially they almost always traveled horizontally.

Another Los Alamos conference convened on October 14. No one disputed the reality of the phenomena and nobody could explain it. Among the puzzles were the sudden onset and the high concentration of sightings in New Mexico, quite unlike natural phenomena. Despite this, it was decided the fireballs were probably atmospheric in origin. Instrumented observations—photographic, triangulation, and spectroscopic—were deemed essential to solving the mystery.

On November 3 Dr. Kaplan brought the plan to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board at the Pentagon. Kaplan by this time had decided the fireballs might be a new type of rare meteor. Nonetheless, most of the scientists remained puzzled by the brightness, trajectories, and absence of sound. Seeming to contradict his meteor hypothesis, Kaplan also said, "This high selectivity of direction seems to indicate that some group was trying to pinpoint Los Alamos with a new sort of weapon." Concerns were expressed about the possibility of panic and the need for continued secrecy.