Documents / Report
This declassified U.S. Air Force file contains the final report of Project Twinkle, dated 27 November 1951 and written by Louis Elterman of the Geophysics Research Division, together with related correspondence. The project was set up to investigate the green fireballs and other light phenomena around Holloman AFB and Vaughn, New Mexico, and it was run with Askania cameras. The report calls its findings essentially negative and recommends no further funding. In March 1952 the Directorate of Intelligence declined to declassify it.
“photographed”7 pages
# CONFIDENTIAL ## 1. Background In accordance with instructions contained in a classified letter from Chief of Staff, USAF to CG, AMC, subject "Light Phenomena", on 14 September 1949, Lt. Col. Frederic C.E. Oder of CRD attended a conference at Los Alamos, 14 October 1949 on the subject of "Green Fireballs" observed in the Northern New Mexico area. Since the phenomena had been observed only in this area and only since 1947, it had caused considerable concern among security agencies in the area. It was the conclusion of the scientists present at this meeting that the information available was not sufficiently quantitative. Instrumental observations - photographic, triangulation, and spectroscopic were considered essential. Dr. L. La Paz of the Department of Meteoritics of Univ. of New Mexico was present at the Los Alamos meeting and subsequently was invited to submit proposals for studying this phenomena under GRD sponsorship. On 2 February 1950, Dr. La Paz advised that due to difficulties with academic arrangements, he was unable to undertake this study. During February 1950, the frequent reports of unexplained aerial phenomena in the vicinity of Holloman Air Force Base and Vaughn, New Mexico prompted the Commanding Officer of Holloman Air Force Base to initiate a program to gather factual data. LOW GRADED AT 3 YEAR INTERVAL DECLASSIFIED AFTER 12 YEARS. DOD DIR 5200.10
Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 29 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.