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This declassified document is a March 22, 1949 letter from the Security Operations Branch of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's Santa Fe Directed Operations. It forwards a transcript of a Conference on Aerial Phenomena held at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory on February 16, 1949. At the conference, Dr. LaPaz described the green fireballs, including his own Starvation Peak sighting of December 12, 1948, and argued that they were not conventional meteors. Dr. Teller and others discussed why the fireballs made no sound, and no conclusion was reached.
“meteor”14 pages
•Conference on AERIAL PHENOMENA Page 9
Dr. LaPaz: ItOs true in 8JlY' c e.tegory. Even ill the irons, the presence ot
copper is very hard to detect, ,re::ey little...... (ditch digger). I don't
kn.01, whether you gentlemen could auggest an easy way to obtain green firebull.
spect!'a 01" not.
Dr. Teller: Wha.t is the geogI'G'.!)hieal solution ot this?
Dr. La.Paz~ Ano·t.~.er map trould probably answer that best of a.11.
{Lool:ed at more mapa m.th GOl!!e talk that vaa not audible.)
Mr. Hoyi coni"ir.ned the green hu.e of the gre fireball he had seen on the
night of December 30., 1948. (Reco1·d dead dor minute or tvo.)
Mr. lioyt: I would have said approximately as tar above the mountain as tho
floor 0£ the val.ley -.ra.a below the top of the mountain. I felt that wuld
give me somewhere in the neigblorhood of 20,000 feet or thereabouts. It we.s
about 5 minutes to 6, on my '!ray up here. I have a reeling that it had a
dmm~d path. ! mean it 'Ira.a going South.
Dr. La.Paz: But :~t was not 1Strietly horizontal?
Mr. Hoyt: Ro.
Dr. LaPaz: We have some discrcpanciea in tbnt regard. 9':/1, or the observa•
t1011s indicate a vary nearly horizontal path. One fram Fort Worth, Texas,
which im.s not made by ••.•• but meas~d by them, indicateo an elevation o:f
6 degrees st the beginning and 2½ to 3 degrees at the end.
Mr. Boyt: That'n what I would have said, but remember that the ridge wuld
give you the senBa-c;ion ·i;hat it was taking a d011Jlll'lU'd path. Duration • e.t
the tim~ I wou.ld say it wao approx.ima.tc:ly 3 seconds.
Cre:td.'t". Mandelkorn: How does the calculated velocity ot thsse objects compare
vith the known velocity o~mcte~rites?
Dr. J'..a.Pa~: Appal'ently ver-y much lower; that 1s,· more tban the ordina.r1ly
observed r.ceteorit;e falls. Fin.it., to observe in the cast of an actual
meteor!te :tall you have a relatio-A o~ ·~e velocity from the auricle ot .....
atmoaphere down to the 1mpaet velocity which may be very ..... but it isn't
fair to compare the velocity of the green fireballs to the impact velocity
of •••••• (ditch digger and. everyone t.al1ting at once) ....... Bot v1th the
trajectory veloci'!;~r of the meteor!te wW.ch is the same as the velocity of
the f~nts thc.t fel.l i"ram th-? meteorite. After a meteor!te . . . . . the
:f'rag!'llent fall about like a bam'b. The1.r resiste.n.ce just about balances out
the . • • . • and as e. result, they come dovn vt·Gh about the velocity ot a
felling bmib, e. 11t·~le less beea.uae thoy do not have the 8&me ballistic
coefficient.
Dr. Bradbury: This 1e not e.n e;£cludecJ. ? direction like the ..... ? Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 25 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.