Green Fireballs

From TinWiki.org

Depiction of a green fireball

In 1948, a very strange series of mysterious Green Fireballs were observed in the skies of New Mexico. Several world renown experts in astronomy and meteors, such as Dr. Lincoln La Paz, were deeply puzzled by the incidents and an offical study was commenced.

1 The First Sightings
2 Scientific Investigation and other Cases
3 Offical Investigation
- 3.1 Project Twinkle
4 External Links
5 Related Discussion Threads

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The First Sightings

On December 5, 1948 the pilot and co-pilot of an Air Force C-47 observed a very bright green flash west of Las vegas, New Mexico at about 9:05 P.M. Dismissing it as a meteor, the crew continued, until about 22 minutes later, when a subsequent flash appeared and followed a parabolic curve. The pilot began to rethink his earlier meteor theory.

The green flashes and fireballs were also observed by the crew of a Pioneer airlines flight. The captain stated that he saw a bright green light at about 9:35 P.M. as the plane was heading toward Las Vegas. The fireball appeared on a collision course with the plane, but then suddenly changed course and vanished after a few seconds.

The next day Lt. Col. Doyle Rees, who was the commander of the AFOSI in the area investigated to see if any military exercises or flare activity could explain it. None was found, and he decided to make a flyover and check out the terrain where the sightings occured. During the flight, he observed a green fireball for himself. Soon, several other witnesses, civilian and military were comming forward with similar sightings of their own.

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Scientific Investigation and other Cases

The fireballs continued to be observed by many witnesses. The Air Force immediately became concerned, because the activity was centered around Los Alamos, Roswell, and other highly secure and sensitive military instalations. Fears began to grow that the fireballs might be some sort of secret Russian weapon or probe, and an offical investigation was set up. The government brought in Dr. Lincoln La Paz, who was the director of the Institute of meterorics at the University of New Mexico, and a world renown expert on meteor activity.

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Dr. La Paz

La Paz went over his records of all past Geminid meteor showers, which were the most active this time of year. He found that despite his observing over 414 Gemind meteors since 1915, not a single record of any green ones existed. He also began recieving reports from fellow scientists and students who were all reporting the phenomenon.

La Paz was to witness his own green fireball sighting. On the night of December 12, 1948 while driving near Bernal, New Mexico with two officers from Kirtland Air Base, he observed a large green fireball. It stayed horizontal for 2 seconds, then curved downward and was gone. Two AESS inspectors saw the same fireball from a different location, and La Paz was able to triangulate the path of the meteor as passing over Los Alamos.

La Paz was puzzled by the characteristics of this "meteor". It had no dust cloud, trail of sparks, and traveled in absolute silence, despite the fact they were observed in the lower atmosphere, where their speeds should have created loud sonic booms. Another puzzling fact was that all but two sightings occured in a small region of New Mexico and no where else.

An informal discussion group was set up at Los Alamos by scientists who were very interested in the phenomenon. After much discussion, they all agreed that the green fireballs were not ordinary meteors at all, if indeed they were even meteors.

La Paz attempted to try and recover one of the meteors, without success, despite his having many resources at his disposal. He took some air dust collection samples in areas where the fireballs had been spotted. The samples revealed the presence of copper, something never found in meteors.

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Small Lights in Texas

A similar phenomenon was manifesting itself at army facilities in Texas. The first one took place over Killen base, a sensitive nuclear weapons storage area at Camp Hood, Texas. Small lights were observed floating about in the air by security patrols on the night of March 6th, 1949. Another sighting took place the next night. The observers stated they were not meteors, and were different colors. They appeared to be anywhere from 10-30 feet off the ground, and moved in absolute silence.

The army set up its own investigation of the mysterious lights. They set up a network of trained artillery observers to observe and gather data on the strange objects. Though they had no cameras, they did manage to set up a good network of observation and did manage to collect some interesting sightings until August. The biggest even took place on June 6 at about 9:05 P.M. The object reported was a hovering orange light of about 30 to 70 feet in size, hovering a mile in the air. It began moving at a level flight, than burst into many smaller particles. They triangulated the object's position at about 3 miles south of the observation post.

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Further Sightings

The Fireballs continued throught the year 1949 in New Mexico, sometimes as frequently as a half a dozen or more in a single month. This continued to puzzle scientists. What sort of natural phenomenon manifests itself in one place and just recently? All agreed some sort of Air Force project needed to be set up to gather more information and data.

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Offical Investigation

The Air Force's official investigation of UFOs, Project Sign, was undergoing massive changes in personnel. In February of 1949, it offically became Project Grudge. Former personnel who began to entertain the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs were being replaced by personnel who were more willing to explain UFOs as nonsense. Although Project Grudge's mission was to investigate unexplained or mysterious aerial phenomenon, none of Grudge's personnel investigated any of the green fireballs. This apathy was noted by both AFOSI and AFOIN, who decided to launch an investigation seperate from Grudge.

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Project Twinkle

Dr. Joseph Kaplan, a UCLA geophysicist suggested a scientific network of instruments be set up to monitor the activity in New Mexico. Project Twinkle was set up in February of 1950. A network of theodolites, cameras, and telescopes was set up near Holloman AFB. However, even though there was activity, none was recorded on film. The number of sightings began to drop off drastically in the end of 1950, and in 1951, Project Twinkle was shut down.

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