Part 7 (2/2)

When he taxied his DC-3 up to the passenger raence officers aiting for hi, approaching Las Vegas froht was a ”shooting star” It was ahead and a little above them

But, the captain said, it took them only a split second to realize that whatever they saas too low and had too flat a trajectory to be a meteor As they watched, the object see color froer, the captain said, he thought sure it was going to collide with thereen ball of fire got abreast of the dimmer and dimmer until it disappeared Just before he swerved the DC-3, the fireball was as big, or bigger, than a full ence officers asked a few more questions and went back to their office More reports, which had been phoned in fro for theation was under way

No etting a little edgy They ed flares, or true UFO's, but whatever they were they were playing around in one of the most sensitive security areas in the United States Within 100 miles of Albuquerque were two installations that were the backbone of the atohout the countryside were other installations vital to the defense of the US: radar stations, fighter-interceptor bases, and the other h chain-link fences

Since the green fireballs bore soence officers called in Dr Lincoln La Paz

Dr La Paz said that he would be glad to help, so the officers explained the strange series of events to him True, he said, the description of the fireballs did sound as if they ht be meteorites --except for a few points One way to be sure was to try to plot the flight path of the green fireballs the saht path of ht path he could determine where they would have hit the earth--if they were meteorites They would search this area, and if they found parts of a reen fireball riddle

The fireball activity on the night of Deceood reports of that night included carefully noted locations, the directions in which the green objects were seen, their heights above the horizon, and the ti Dr La Paz and a crew of intelligence officers were scouring northern New Mexico They started out by talking to the people who had made reports but soon found out that dozens of other people had also seen the fireballs By closely checking the tiht separate fireballs had been seen One was evidently more spectacular and was seen by thefrom west to east, so Dr La Paz and his creorked eastward across New Mexico to the west border of Texas, talking to dozens of people After many sleepless hours they finally plotted where it should have struck the earth They searched the area but found nothing They went back over the area ti As Dr La Paz later told reen fireballs were meteorites

Within a few htly

The intelligence officers froood look at one of theht of December 8 two officers took off in an airplane just before dark and began to cruise around north of Albuquerque They had a carefully worked out plan where each reen fireballs At 6:33PM they saw one This is their report:

At 6:33PM while flying at an indicated altitude of 11,500 feet, a strange phenomenon was observed Exact position of the aircraft at tias, NM, radio range station The aircraft was on a corees Capt ------ was pilot and I was acting as copilot I first observed the object and a split second later the pilot saw it It was 2,000 feet higher than the plane, and was approaching the plane at a rapid rate of speed frorees to the left of our course The object was sireen flare, the kind that is coht was er than a norhted, was almost flat and parallel to the earth The phenomenon lasted about 2 seconds At the end of this tiin to burn out and the trajectory then dropped off rapidly The phenomenon was of such intensity as to be visible froht-Patterson AFB, ATIC was getting a blow-by-blow account of the fireball activity but they were taking no direct part in the investigation TheirUFO reports and see if the green fireball reports were actually unique to the Albuquerque area They were Although a goodin froreen fireballs

All during Decereen fireballs continued to invade the New Mexico skies Everyone, including the intelligence officers at Kirtland AFB, Air Defense Couished scientists at Los Alamos had seen at least one

In mid-February 1949 a conference was called at Los Alamos to deteration

The Air Force, Project Sign, the intelligence people at Kirtland, and other interested parties had done everything they could think of and still no answer

Such notable scientists as Dr Joseph Kaplan, a world-renowned authority on the physics of the upper atmosphere, Dr Edward Teller, of H-bo with a lot of military brass and scientists from Los Alamos

This was one conference where there was no need to discuss whether or not this special type of UFO, the green fireball, existed Al had seen one The purpose of the conference was to decide whether the fireballs were natural or man-made and how to find out more about them

As happens in any conference, opinions were divided Soreen fireballs were natural fireballs The proponents of the naturalout of astronoh not common, had been observed on many occasions The flat trajectory, which seereen fireballs were extraterrestrial, was also nothing new When viewed froles, a meteor can appear to have a flat trajectory

The reason that soDecember of 1948 and January of 1949 was that the weather had been unusually clear all over the Southwest during this period

Dr La Paz led the group who believed that the green fireballs were not uained after ence teams He stuck to the points that (1) the trajectory was too flat, (2) the color was too green, and (3) he couldn't locate any fragh he had found the spots where they should have hit the earth if they werehave toldand that each point was carefully considered But evidently it wasn't conclusive enough because when the conference broke up, after two days, it was decided that the green fireballs were a natural phenomenon of some kind It was recoiven to the Air Force's Cae Research Laboratory, since it is the function of this group to study natural phenoraph the green fireballs and measure their speed, altitude, and size

In the late sue established Project Twinkle to solve thethree cinetheodolite stations near White Sands, New Mexico A cinetheodolite is siraph of an object you also get a photograph of three dials that show the tile, and the elevation angle of the caraph the same object, it is possible to obtain a very accurate raphed object's altitude, speed, and size

Project Twinkle was a bust Absolutely nothing was photographed Of the three cameras that were planned for the project, only one was available This one ca moved from place to place If several reports came from a certain area, the camera creould load up their equip too late Any duck hunter can tell you that this is the wrong tactic; if you want to shoot any ducks pick a good place and stay put, let the ducks co to operate Project Twinkle were having financial and ood job they needed et cuts precluded this

Moral support was free but they didn't get this either

When the Korean War started, Project Twinkle silently died, along with official interest in green fireballs

When I organized Project Blue Book in the sureen fireball We had a few files marked ”Los Alamos Conference,” ”Fireballs,” ”Project Twinkle,” etc, but I didn't pay any attention to theeles with several other officers from ATIC, and was introduced to Dr Joseph Kaplan When he found ere froreen fireballs?” None of us had ever heard of theave us the story He and I ended up discussing green fireballs He reen fireballs h he respected La Paz's professional ability, he just wasn't convinced But he did strongly urge et in touch with Dr La Paz and hear his side of the story