Los Alamos scientists including Edward Teller hold a secret conference on the New Mexico green fireballs
February 16, 1949 · Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, New Mexico · Government report · Primary document linked
On 16 February 1949 Army, Navy, FBI and Atomic Energy Commission officials met Los Alamos scientists, among them Norris Bradbury, Edward Teller and Frederick Reines, in a conference classified Secret. An Army officer said airline pilots had begun reporting green fireballs in December 1948. Meteorite expert Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico described the one he saw himself near Starvation Peak on 12 December 1948: a yellow-green light that appeared at full brightness, crossed almost horizontally at constant speed for about two seconds and broke into green fragments. He argued that the fireballs, with near-horizontal paths low in the atmosphere, an unusual green and no sound, were not ordinary meteorite falls. Teller worked through the energy and sound on a blackboard and said that if he believed everything he had heard it 'ought to be a material body' or 'might be an electron phenomenon'.
Era: Flying discs and the first inquiries · Threads: Scientific study, Nuclear and weapons sites
Why it matters (3/5)
A classified meeting of senior weapons scientists and military investigators on unexplained fireballs near atomic sites.
Caveats
The meeting reached no conclusion. Bradbury closed by saying he still did not feel 'the meteor stuff is out', while finding the long horizontal paths and the absence of noise puzzling. The transcript has gaps where the recording was drowned out or too jumbled to transcribe.
Sources
- Los Alamos Conference on Aerial Phenomena 1949 (DOE-UAP-D004) (U.S. Department of Energy (released by the Department of War)), primary
- General Correspondence Of Sandia (DOW-UAP-D017) (U.S. Department of War), context