Green Fireballs - Green Fireballs After Project Twinkle

Green Fireballs After Project Twinkle

Despite the discontinuation of Project Twinkle, green fireballs were still occasionally sighted and LaPaz continued to comment. In early November, 1951, a month before the official termination of Twinkle, a huge flurry of green fireball sightings occurred in the Southwest and other states. LaPaz was widely quoted saying that such a concentration of fireballs was unprecedented in history, and he didn't believe they were a natural phenomenon. (more details below in Atomic testing and fallout theory) In April 1952 the green fireballs and Project Twinkle were written up in a famous Life magazine article titled "Have We Visitors From Space?" A recent green fireball incident over Arizona from November 1951 was mentioned. LaPaz again repeated why the fireballs could not be ordinary meteors. The article also described LaPaz's UFO sighting near Roswell, New Mexico, on July 10, 1947, about the same time as the famous Roswell UFO incident. LaPaz, however, remained anonymous. Also described was a 1949 UFO sighting by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto (Life magazine article).

In January 1953 LaPaz was quoted in newspaper articles saying the green fireballs were artificial devices and might be a Soviet missile scouting the U.S. and other parts of the world. According to Ruppelt, the green fireballs reappeared in September 1954. One the size of a full moon was seen streaking southeast across Colorado, lighting up Denver, and into northern New Mexico. It was seen by thousands at a football stadium in Santa Fe. LaPaz was called back in to investigate, but told a reporter that he did not expect to find anything. From April 3 to 9, 1955, five green fireballs were reported in New Mexico and two in northern California. At least three were reported within minutes of one another midmorning of April 5. LaPaz stated, "This is a record . . . I'm sure the yellow-green fireballs aren't ordinary meteorite falls. I've been observing the skies since 1914, and I've never seen any meteoritic fireballs like them." In a visit by astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek in March 1965, LaPaz told Hynek that one had been reported as recently as the previous Christmas (Steiger, p. 132).