This is one of the 24 pages of one of the many formerly secret official documents on this issue. These pages are the minutes of an important conference on the issue held at Los Alamos on February 16, 1949. Representatives of the Army, the FBI, the Air Force and scientists joined together. Dr. La Paz spent two years chasing the green fireballs and explains the issues. Dr. Edward Teller, one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, asks questions.
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have been reported to me, both before and after this December 12th occurrence,
possess almost all the properties which I personally observed on the night of
December 12th, I feel that in all probability they are not themselves conventional
meteor falls. Now, the easy way out of this is to conjure up an unconventional
fall of ... meteorite, which comes in practically parallel to the surface
of the earth and is somehow endowed with the property against
the very great atmospheric resistance that is experienced on a level, it reserves
nearly constant velocity over paths say of the order of 25 to 100 miles, as in the
case of the green fireball on January 30th. It should also have the property
that it is a very remarkable hue of green, not heretofore observed,
to my knowledge, in the case of any conventional meteor falls. And finally and
this possibly is the most implausible feature of all, that although it
produces light visible at distances of the order of 400 miles, it doesn't
make a sound. in the case of the January 30th fall, due to the fact that there has been
a large number of military personnel alerted, we were able to obtain observations
within a minute after the fall occurred and pursued the investigation
over a distance of 1,600 miles - in Texas mud primarily - in some ten days
time interviewing literally hundreds of people, we saw not one
substantiated account of noise produced by the meteor fall.
Dr. Teller: May I ask you how many people have seen this one big meteorite? Dr. La Paz: That is difficult to say. (record blank for short period) ... finally, in the interrogation of such persons, we invariably interview them as individuals. We tried a family of 8 the first night, as Major Godsoe will recall, interviewing ... and it became apparent at once that there was some sympathetic influence and we broke it off after I think the third or four observations and thereafter interviewed separately. If you were to search, however, the independant observations of those who were widely separated, possibly stations of the order of 100, there were probably 100 different stations reporting. Dr. Teller: What area did it cover? Dr. LaPaz: All of New Mexico, all the western half of Texas. I have a map here with some indications of possibly the extent of that. Hoyt and Bradbury: Wasn't that Sunday the 24th? Dr. LaPaz: No, it was definitely Sunday the 30th. The newspapers have very helpfully concealed most of the relevant facts relating to this fireball. First, they described it as a fireball, secondly, they ... (record blank for few seconds). interfered with OSI and wasn't able to do that this time. This is the field map and will give in various colors, dots, and pencil dashs, etc. all of the observations obtained on the Texas search. Dr. Teller: All relate to one fall? Dr. LaPaz: Yes. These lines are drawn from points of observation. The center, |
