Photo: Prasen Yadav
Ufologists often like to make a connection between UFOs and nuclear power, and often quote historical incidents. A recent article by Marik Von Rennenkampff said:
In late 1948, for example, dozens of pilots, defense personnel and scientists associated with the famed Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear weapons programs began
seeing mysterious "
green fireballs" in the sky. Such objects were frequently observed flying on a perfectly horizontal trajectory, often moving
directly toward nearby aircraft. In 1949, two major Los Alamos conferences on the incidents, which drew the likes of famed nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller,
failed to identify the source of the phenomena.
Lincoln LaPaz, then one of the world's leading authorities on meteorites, observed the "fireballs" personally and, in partnership with the Air Force, conducted a thorough
study of the mysterious phenomena. As
Time and Life magazines reported contemporaneously, LaPaz "
blasted" the notion that the objects were meteorites, bolides or other naturally occurring phenomena.
The bizarre incidents, along with their apparent connection to nuclear weapons research, remain unexplained.
The "blasted" link goes to a 1952 article in LIFE magazine.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ElYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA80&pg=PA92#v=onepage&q&f=true
External Quote:
Evaluation. The popular Southwest belief that a strange meteor shower was underway has been blasted by Dr. Lincoln La Paz, mathematician, astronomer and director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico. He points out that normal fireballs do not appear green, they fall in the trajectory forced on them by gravity, are generally noisy as a freight train and leave meteorites where they hit. The green New Mexican species does none of these
This immediately seems odd, as we are quite familiar with green meteors.
Green fireballs have been reported and filmed in New Zealand regularly. Bright meteors often signal the arrival of a chunk of asteroid, which can be anywhere between a few centimeters to a meter in diameter when it comes crashing through the atmosphere.
Some of these asteroids contain nickel and iron and they hit the atmosphere at speeds of up to 60 km (37 miles) per second. This releases an enormous amount of heat very quickly, and the vaporized iron and nickel radiate green light.
And his other objections don't seem to stand up to scrutiny:
"
they fall in the trajectory forced on them by gravity" - which can include what looks like horizontal, it depends on the the trajectory of the meteorite/bolide. If it's coming in at a shallow angle, it can traverse the sky. They are most commonly at an angle to the horizon, as they are falling down. But unfortunately we don't have much to go on beside eyewitness accounts.
"
are generally noisy as a freight train" - bolides make noise, but it varies, and it's not always audible. The sound is usually more of a boom than a passing train. It depends on distance and the size of the bolide.
"
leave meteorites where they hit" - yes, but A) that assumes they hit, and B) you've got to find them. Quite a challenging task even in the modern era of constant recording of trajectories, and the computer extrapolation of impact sites. In that 1950s you'd be very lucky to find a small or broken meteorite by analyzing a few eyewitness accounts. And LaPaz himself said in 1950:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3057&context=nmq
External Quote:
unless the extra-atmospheric mass of the invading meteorite is considerable, there is no possibility that an appreciable fraction of survive the fiery ordeal of transit through the atmosphere and fall as a solid mass on the surface of the earth. Meteors are the luminous shavings produced when meteorites pass through the atmospheric planing mill. Like planks, the solid meteorites emerge from this experience greatly reduced in size. If they are quite small to begin with-as are most of the meteorites in inter- planetary space-then nothing endures to escape from the atmos- phere. Indeed, it has been estimated that, on the average, not more than a thousand of the hundreds of billions of meteorites that annually bombard the earth actually drop solid survivors on the land surface of the globe.
The other link goes to a an FBI collection of UFO documents from the 1950s, the linked portion on page 4 is from 25 May 1950 and discusses a conference on green fireballs (a meeting) which yielded no results, and an upcoming study. The previous paragraph mentions an analysis by LaPas.
External Quote:
3. there is also attached and analysis of the green fireball occurrences in this area made by Dr. Lincoln LaPax. Dr. LaPaz is the Director of the Institute of Meteoritics and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico. He was Re- search Mathematician at the New Mexico Proving Grounds under an OSRD appointment in 1943 and 1944, and Technical Director of the Operations Analysis Section, Headquarters, Second Air Force, 1944-45. Since 1948, Dr. LaPaz has served on a voluntary basis as consultant for this Dis- trict in connection with the green fireball investigations.
4. On 17 February 1949 and again on 14 October 1949, conferences were held at Los Alamos, New Mexico, for the purpose of discussing the green fireball phenomena. Representatives of the following organizations were present at these meetings: Fourth Army, Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, University of New Mexico, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, University of California, U. S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, Geophysical Research Division Air Materiel Command USAF, and the Office of Special Investigations (IG) USAF. A logical explanation was not proffered with respect to the origin of the green fircballs. It was, however, ronorally concluded that the phenomena existed and that they should bo stwiied scientifically until theso occurrences have been satisfactorily explained. Further, that the continued occurrence of unexplained phenomena of this nature in the vicinity of sensitive installations is cause for concern.
5. The Geophysical Research Division, Air Latericl Command, Cambridge, Massachusetts, has recently let a contract to Land-Air, Inc., Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, New Mexico, for a limited scientific study of green fireballs. The results of this scientific approach to the problem will undoubtedly be of great value in determining the origin of these phenomena.
LaPaz's analysis on page 55, dated May 23, 1950. Two years before the LIFE article. Hard to read, but he says they are all either meteorites or misidentified missiles.
https://vault.fbi.gov/UFO/UFO Part 11 of 16#page=55
External Quote:
I have come to the conclusion that, on the basis of the evidence now available to be, I would not be justified in recommending a fireball project. In my opinion, this evidence proves conclusively that the fireballs reported fall in to one to two categories: Those of the first category (the majority) are meteorite falls of unusual, but certainly not impossible, magnitude, frequency, and other characteristic; those of the second category (the minority) are U.S. guided missiles undergoing tests in the neighborhoods of the sensitive installations that they are designed to defend.
This interpretation of the latter category is the one that I proposed in answer to a question raised by Dr. Teller at his first Los Alamos conference on [some month] 17, 1949. It was not taken seriously then and I doubt it will be taken seriously at the present time. However, even if the interpretation of the unconventional fireballs is the correct one, it is obvious that those in position to confirm it should refuse to do so.
It seems possible that the missiles hypothesis was deemed too sensitive for public consumption, which is why it was not mentioned in the LIFE article.
The article's link to LaPaz's study does not go to the study, but actually goes to an online version the 1960 book, "The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects", by Edward J. Ruppelt. This gives another account of the conference.
https://www.nicap.org/rufo/rufo-04.htm
External Quote:
As happens in any conference, opinions were divided. Some people thought the green fireballs were natural fireballs. The proponents of the natural meteor, or meteorite, theory presented facts that they had dug out of astronomical journals. Greenish colored meteors, although not common, had been observed on many occasions. The flat trajectory, which seemed to be so important in proving that the green fireballs were extraterrestrial, was also nothing new. When viewed from certain angles, a meteor can appear to have a flat trajectory. The reason that so many had been seen during December 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 meteors or meteorites. His argument was derived from the facts that he had gained after many days of research and working with Air Force intelligence 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 fragments even though he had found the spots where they should have hit the earth if they were meteorites.
People who were at that meeting have told me that Dr. La Paz's theory was very interesting and 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.
The book goes on to describe La Paz's objection to meteorites for the minority of cases. He did not actually think that they could not be green, but rather that they were
too green.
https://www.nicap.org/rufo/rufo-04.htm#:~:text=common, everyday meteors.-,Dr. La Paz said,-that some people
External Quote:
Dr. La Paz said that some people, including Dr. Joseph Kaplan and Dr. Edward Teller, thought that the green fireballs were natural meteors. He didn't think so, however, for several reasons. First the color was so much different. To illustrate his point, Dr. La Paz opened his desk drawer and took out a well worn chart of the color spectrum. He checked off two shades of green; one a pale, almost yellowish green and the other a much more distinct vivid green. He pointed to the bright green and told me that this was the color of the green fireballs. He'd taken this chart with him when he went out to talk to people who had seen the green fireballs and everyone had picked this one color. The pale green, he explained, was the color reported in the cases of documented green meteors.
However a lot of the green meteors actually caught on camera seem pretty vivid green.
Overally, pretty inconclusive. 70+ years ago there was a spate to green fireballs. Then less so. Perhaps it was just a wave of meteors caused by the Earth passing through a cloud of debris that just had a bit more nickel in it than normal, and so was a bit more green. We know from Starlink and other things that pilot and other eyewitness reports are not very reliable. Nothing was caught on camera. We'll probably never know.
