The
Nuclear Connection Project
The
New Mexico Sightings
Path of UFO over nuclear
weapons bunkers.
(See Kirtland AFB, November 4, 1957)
Updated:
September 3, 2005
The evidence for a UFO/Nuclear Connection grows stronger by the
day. Official FBI, CIA, Army and Air Force documents establish, beyond
a doubt, that UFOs have been seen and reported where uranium was mined
and plutonium was manufactured (
the Congo, New Mexico,
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the
Hanford Plant at Washington, the Savannah River facility at South
Carolina). Official reports are on file of UFOs seen where bomb
development took place (Los Alamos, Sandia Base) and where nuclear
weapons were stored (Manzano Mountain near Kirtland, NM, and
Killeen Base at Camp Hood, TX).
This is a part of that story, the New Mexico Sightings, which we
produced to include all the known cases and provided links to the full
report directories and official supporting documents. Where enough
information is not available to produce a case directory, the
supporting documents are provided as temporary directories. This report
includes the 209-case La Paz Catalog (known also as the
AFOSI
Summary of Sightings of Unknown Aerial Phenomena) which is made up
primarily of Green Fireball cases in New Mexico, the majority of which
are unknowns.
I wish to thank Dan Wilson, one of our staff researchers, for his fine
research into the Blue Book Archives for the supporting documents in
most of these cases. And to Brad Sparks for his re-evaluation of the
Project Blue Book Unknowns which doubled the number of cases that
were unexplained, many of which occurred in New Mexico and other
high-security areas such as Oak Ridge (TN) and Killeen Base (TX). His
summaries provide most of the compacted detail for many of the cases.
The latest major contribution, in the form of a digitized version of
the La Paz catalog, was the work of Jean Waskiewicz. The digitized
version of the catalog would not have happened at all without the
suggestion of Brad Sparks and the acquisition of clean, clear copies of
the AFOSI catalog from Jan Aldrich. The AFOSI entries are brief and
listed just as they were translated unless the full report documents
have been retrieved from the Blue Book Archives. In that case any
errors in the 209 case AFOSI Summary will be corrected.
If you have information of an important nature to provide for this
report, please contact me at your convenience.
Francis Ridge
Coordinator, Nuclear Connection Project
nicap@insightbb.com
NICAP records show the first sighting in New Mexico as March of 1944:
March 1944; Carlsbad, NM
An Air Force B-17 pilot saw a
fast-moving, glowing green object which
lit up the cockpit, and moved out of sight over the
horizon. (NICAP files)
The earliest report listed in the AFOSI Summary of Unknown Aerial
Phenomena (AFOSI #1) is for January 19, 1946. However, this occurred
outside of New Mexico and the U.S., near Brest, in Europe.
June 27, 1947; White Sands, NM
Captain E.B. Detchmendy reported a white, glowing UFO passing over the
White Sands missile range and reported it to his commanding officer.
(UFO
Encyclopedia)
June 29, 1947; White Sands, NM
[1:20?] p.m. USN Naval Research Lab rocket
scientist-engineer Dr. Carl J. Zohn, Admin Asst., Rocket Sonde Section,
White Sands Proving Ground (WSPG), NRL scientist Curtis C. Rockwood and
his wife, and WSPG technician John R. Kauke, were driving in a car from
Las Cruces to WSPG headed NE when they saw to their right front [E] a
rotating silvery or shiny disc or sphere with no appendages, wings,
tail, propellers, reflecting sunlight [pulsating?], crossing the sky at
high speed heading N at about 8,000-10,000 ft which suddenly
disappeared in mid-air in a clear cloudless sky. Kauke had stopped the
car and briefly saw a short vapor trail at one point not reported by
the others. Zohn on the passenger side rolled the window for an
unobstructed view.
July, 1947; Roswell, NM
The file on the Roswell crash is too large to delve into at this time
but can be accessed at the link provided.
July 10, 1947; near Fort Sumner, NM
A white, sharply-outlined,
200' ellipsoidal object was reported and listed in the Blue Book
Unknowns.(McDonald) A midday sighting by a University of New Mexico
meteoriticist, Dr.
Lincoln
La Paz, and members of his family was summarized by _Life_ magazine
years
ago without identifying La Paz's name. At 4:47 p.m. MST on 7/10/47,
four
members of the La Paz family nearly simultaneously noted "a curious
bright
object almost motionless" low on the western horizon, near a cloudbank.
The object was described as ellipsoidal, whitish, and having
sharply-outlined edges. It wobbled a bit as it hovered stationary just
above the horizon, then moved upwards, passed behind clouds and
re-emerged
farther north in a time interval which La Paz estimated to be so short
as
to call for speeds in excess of conventional aircraft speeds. It passed
in
front of dark clouds and seemed self-luminous by contrast. It finally
disappeared amongst the clouds. La Paz estimated it to be perhaps 20
miles
away, judging from the clouds involved; and he put its length at
perhaps
165-245 ft.
Late August, 1947; Holloman AFB, NM
A CPS-4 radar was modified to track objects at very high altitude,
aimed its
antenna straight up, and picked up a target at 200 miles up. The report
leaked out and Project SIGN sent two high-level investigators but the
prime witnesses were conveniently not available. What can remain
stationary at 200 miles up and who had anything like that in 1947? A
detailed report can be accessed from the above link.
AFOSI Case 2: Late 1947; Vaughn, NM.
Not listed in either BB Unknown list,
original or updated, this incident is listed as #2 in the LaPaz/OSI
catalog of events. It is Incident 225. Colonel Hayes first
observed an
unusual aerial phenomena during
the latter part of 1947. This occurred in the vicinity of Vaughn, NM.
The phenomena appeared approximately 400-500 ft above the ground when
first observed and was descending slowly and steadily in a vertical
manner toward the earth. It appeared slightly larger than a basketball,
bright white in color like a miniature sun. At a point approximately
200 feet above the surface of the earth, the object appeared to explode
although no noise was apparent. By this time the Colonel had stopped
his automobile and had gotten out to watch the object. The explosion or
disintegration appeared to be taking place some 40 to 60 yards distant
and still no noise was noticed. At this time the fragments assumed a
fiery red color and descended toward earth like numerous sparks being
extinguished before touching the ground. At the time Col Hayes was dn
Highway 60, near a railroad and separated from the vicinity where the
fragments were landing by a fence. He did not cross the fence or
investigate further.
Late August 1947; Alamogordo [Holloman] Army Air Field, NM
AMC Watson Labs Project MOGUL communications officer Lt. H. G. Markley
while watching 2 balloons with radar reflector to the SE in 10x
binoculars saw traveling at unprecedented rate of speed around white
object in horizontal flight S to N several thousand feet over the tops
of Sacramento Mtns. [Case falsely explained by AF as false radar
targets when no radar observation was involved.] (BBU, FOIA; Mary
Castner/CUFOS; Loren Gross Aug-Dec 1947 SUPP p. 28; July-Dec 1949 orig
ed p. 25)
April 5, 1948; Holloman
AFB, NM (Blue Book Unknown Case 139)
Afternoon. Team watches 35-meter disc. Witnesses:
Geophysics Lab balloon observers Alsen, Johnson, Chance. Two irregular,
round, white or golden objects. One made three loops then rose and
disappeared rapidly; the other flew in a fast arc to the west during
the 30-second sighting.
April 9, 1948; Holloman AFB?, Alamogordo, NM
2:06 p.m. (MST). (BBU Sparks, Trakowski GRUDGE rpt)
July 17, 1948; Acacia Dam, NM
4:50 p.m. 5 miles S of San Acacia Dam.2 Kirtland AFB Sgts. on a fishing
trip with their families
saw a group of 7 aluminum circular possibly spherical objects approach
from the S at 20,000 ft pass overhead at 1,500 mph if the altitude was
correct (5°/sec angular velocity), at first appearing like
snub-nosed jet fighters of unknown type, shifting from V formation to L
formation to circular formation to no regular formation, at which point
a regular pulsating flashing light appeared in the group at 30°
from zenith to the N, and at this oblique angle the objects did not
appear circular. No noise or trail. 10-30 secs. (BBU Sparks, FOIA)
AFOSI Case 3: July 27, 1948; Albuquerque, NM
8:33-8:45 am. "Duraluminum" reflected light, flat and round, stationary
at times.
AFOSI Case 4 & 5 were not New Mexico Cases.
Sept. 23, 1948; Los Alamos, NM
[AESS security guard Hanson ?? saw an oval orange luminous object,
length/width ratio about 1.5:1, to the E crossing the sky in level
flight from right to left, trailing flame, disappearing in a cloud bank
to the NE.] (BBU Sparks)
Sept. 23, 1948; Los Alamos (Santa
Fe?), NM
9:40 a.m. Group of Los Alamos Scientific Lab personnel, Angier,
Fairchild and others, waiting for an aircraft at the landing strip saw
a sun-reflecting glint in the sky from a flat circular metallic object
high in the N sky appearing like a flat dime on-edge slightly tipped as
if 50 ft away. Angier reported an apparent size of 100 to 150 feet in
diameter. The object was stationary at about 25,000 to 30,000 feet, and
then started to move. Object seemed to be moving in a semi-circle.
Fairchild says the object was oblong or egg-shaped and appeared to
have a speed of 700 to 800 MPH. (Case recounted in unpublished Ruppelt
manuscript said
to be included in the TOP SECRET AMC Estimate of the Situation,
apparently a revised version of the Aug. 5, 1948, initial draft.
(Sparks BBU,
FUFOR Index.)
The above report contains a link to a 165-page AEC report on the
importance of the Santa Fe operations, also reproduced here:
AFOSI Case 6: November 3 or 4th, 1948;
Vaugh, NM
Project Blue Book unknown, 125. Reliable
witness. Information and documents needed.
10 miles E of
Vaughn, New Mexico(34.61°
N, 105.21°
W). [U.S. Army Col.?] Hayes. [Green Fireball?] (McDonald list, FUFOR
index).
AFOSI Case 7: November 23, 1948;
Vaugh, NM.
Not listed as BB unknown, this is the same witness as Case 006 and a
reliable witness. At
approximately 2130 hours, Colonel Hayes was driving west on Highway 60,
about 10 miles west of Vaughn, New Mexico. He observed a ball of light,
descending vertically, which burst 100-200 feet from the ground. The
conditions and appearance were the same as occurred on 3 or 4 November.
THE GREEN FIREBALLS (Indented
paragraphs are quotes from Captain Edward
J. Ruppelt, "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects", pages 47-56)
Edward Ruppelt:
The green fireballs streaked into UFO
history late in November 1948,
when people around Albuquerque, New Mexico, began to report seeing
mysterious 'green flares' at night. The first reports mentioned only a
'green streak in the sky, low on the horizon. From the description
the Air Force Intelligence people at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque and
the Project Sign people at ATIC wrote the objects off as flares. After
all, thousands of GI's had probably been discharged with a duffel bag
full of 'liberated' Very pistols and flares.
But as days passed the reports got
better. They seemed to indicate
that the 'flares were getting larger and more people were reporting
seeing them. It was doubtful if this 'growth' was psychological because
there had been no publicity - so the Air Force decided to reconsider
the 'flare' answer. They were in the process of doing this on the night
of December 5, 1948, a memorable night in the green fireball chapter of
UFO history.
At 9:05 PM MST, the crew of a USAF C-47
transport flying from
Lowry AFB, Colorado, to Williams AFB, Chandler, AZ, saw a green
flarelike light just west of Las Vegas, NM. At 9:30 they reported by
radio to Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, that they had seen another green
flare rise from the ground to 500 ft altitude on the eastern slope of
the Sandia Mountains at 9:27.
At
9:27 P.M. on December 5, an Air Force C-47 transport was flying
at 18,000 feet 10 miles east of Albuquerque. The pilot was a Captain
Goede. Suddenly the crew, Captain Goede, his co-pilot, and his engineer
were startled by a green ball of fire flashing across the sky ahead of
them. It looked something like a huge meteor except that it was a
bright green color and it didn't arch downward, as meteors usually do.
The green- colored ball of fire had started low, from near the eastern
slopes of the Sandia Mountains, arched upward a little, then seemed to
level out. And it was too big for a meteor, at least it was larger than
any meteor that anyone in the C-47 had ever seen before. After a hasty
discussion the crew decided that they'd better tell somebody about it,
especially since they had seen an identical object twenty-two minutes
before near Las Vegas, New Mexico.
Captain Goede picked up his
microphone and called the control tower
at Kirtland AFB and reported what he and his crew had seen. The tower
relayed the message to the local intelligence people.
AFOSI
Case 9: December 5, 1948;
Albuquerque, NM.
A few minutes later the captain
of
Pioneer Airlines Flight 63 called
Kirtland Tower. At 9:35 P.M. he had also seen a green
ball of fire just
east of Las Vegas, New Mexico. He was on his way to Albuquerque and
would make a full report when he landed.
When he taxied his DC-3 up to
the passenger ramp at Kirtland a few
minutes later, several intelligence officers were waiting for him. He
reported that at 9:35 P.M. he was on a westerly heading, approaching
Las Vegas from the east, when he and his co-pilot saw what they first
thought was a "shooting star." It was ahead and a little above them.
But, the captain said, it took them only a split second to realize that
whatever they saw was too low and had too flat a trajectory to be a
meteor. As they watched, the object seemed to approach their airplane
head on, changing color from orange red to green. As it became bigger
and bigger, the captain said, he thought sure it was going to collide
with them so he racked the DC-3 up in a tight turn. As the green ball
of fire got
abreast of them it began to fall toward the ground, getting dimmer and
dimmer until it disappeared. Just before he swerved the DC-3, the
fireball was as big, or bigger, than a full moon.
The intelligence
officers asked a few more questions and went back
to their office. More reports, which had been phoned in from all over
northern New Mexico, were waiting for them. By morning a full-fledged
investigation was under way.
No matter what these green fireballs were, the military was getting a
little edgy. They might be common meteorites, psychologically enlarged
flares, or true UFO's, but whatever they were they were playing around
in one of the most sensitive security areas in the United States.
Within 100 miles of Albuquerque were two installations that were the
backbone of the atomic bomb program, Los Alamos and Sandia Base.
Scattered throughout the countryside were other installations vital to
the defense of the U.S.: radar stations, fighter interceptor bases, and
the other mysterious areas that had been blocked off by high chain link
fences.
AFOSI
Case 10: December 6, 1948; Sandia
Base, NM.
Albuquerque, New Mexico (35.10° N, 106.64°
W). 10:55 p.m. AESS officer Joseph Toulouse driving W saw a green
fireball almost directly overhead above Sandia Base nuclear weapons
assembly site, slightly to the NW arching slightly downward from E to
W, about 1/3 full moon, with a flaming tail. (FOIA)
Since the green fireballs bore some
resemblance to meteors or meteorites, the Kirtland intelligence
officers called in Dr. Lincoln La Paz.
Dr. La Paz said that he would be glad
to help, so the officers explained the strange series of events to him.
True, he said, the description of the fireballs did sound as if they
might be meteorites - except for a few points. One way to be sure was
to try to plot the flight path of the green fireballs the same way he
had so successfully plotted the flight path of meteorites in the past.
From this flight path he could determine where they would have hit the
earth - if they were meteorites. They would search this area, and if
they found parts of a meteorite they would have the answer to the green
fireball riddle.
The fireball activity on the night of
December 5 was made to order
for plotting flight paths. The good reports of that night included
carefully noted locations, the directions in which the green objects
were seen, their heights above the horizon, and the times when they
were observed. So early the next morning Dr. La Paz and a crew of
intelligence officers were scouring northern New Mexico. They started
out by talking to the people who had made reports but soon found out
that dozens of other people had also seen the fireballs. By closely
checking the time of the observations, they determined that eight
separate fireballs had been seen. One was evidently more spectacular
and was seen by the most people. Everyone in northern New Mexico had
seen it going from west to east, so Dr. La Paz and his crew worked
eastward across New Mexico to the west border of Texas, talking to
dozens of people. After many sleepless hours they finally plotted where
it should have struck the earth. They
searched the area but found nothing. They went back over the area time
and time again-nothing. As Dr. La Paz later told me, this was the first
time that he seriously doubted the green fireballs were meteorites.
Within
a few more days the fireballs were appearing almost nightly.
The intelligence officers from Kirtland decided that maybe they could
get a good look at one of them, so on the night of December 8 two
officers took off in an airplane just before dark and began to cruise
around north of Albuquerque. They had a carefully worked out plan where
each man would observe certain details if they saw one of the green
fireballs. At 6:33 P.M. they saw one. This is their report:
"At 6:33 P.M. while flying at
an
indicated altitude of 11,500 feet, a
strange phenomenon was observed. Exact position of the aircraft at
time
of the observation was 20 miles east of the Las Vegas, N.M., radio
range station. The aircraft was on a compass course of 90 degrees.
Capt. was pilot and I was acting as copilot. I first observed the
object and a split second later the pilot saw it. It was 2,000 feet
higher than the plane, and was approaching the plane at a rapid rate of
speed from 30 degrees to the left of our course. The object was similar
in appearance to a burning green flare, the kind that is commonly used
in the Air Force. However, the light was much more intense and the
object appeared considerably larger than a normal flare. The trajectory
of the object, when first sighted, was almost flat and parallel to the
earth. The phenomenon lasted about 2 seconds. At the end of this time
the object seemed to begin to burn out and the trajectory then dropped
off rapidly. The phenomenon was of such intensity as to be visible from
the very moment it ignited."
Back at Wright-Patterson AFB, ATIC was
getting a blow-by-blow
account of the fireball activity but they were taking no direct part in
the investigation. Their main interest was to review all incoming UFO
reports and see if the green fireball reports were actually unique to
the Albuquerque area. They were. Although a good many UFO reports were
coming in from other parts of the U.S., none fit the description of the
green fireballs.
AFOSI Case 12 is not from New Mexico.
AFOSI
Case 13: December 12,
1948; Starvation
Peak, NM.
Starvation Peak near Bernal, New Mexico. 9:02 p.m.
±0.5 min (MST). Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, USAF Capt. Charles L.
Phillips, and CAP intelligence officer Lt. Allan B. Clark, returning
from green fireball investigations while looking to the NW saw a green
fireball at least stellar magnitude -4 traveling E to W low above the
horizon about 3°-4° elevation in almost perfectly level flight
until the last 0.1 to 0.2 sec when it slightly curved downward,
disintegrating into 3-4 pieces, no sound. Based on independent witness,
an AESS guard at Los Alamos, LaPaz triangulated object's flight path at
about 8-10 miles height along a 25-mile path, speed 39,000 to 43,000
mph. (FOIA)
AFOSI Case 14: December 20, 1948; Los
Alamos,
NM.
West of Los Alamos, New Mexico (35.89° N, 106.31° W). AESS
observation post sighted green fireball with a triangulated 7-8-mile W
to E flight path calculated by LaPaz based on another independent
observation at a different site. (FOIA)
AFOSI Case 15: December 28, 1948; Los
Alamos, NM.
An inspector at Los Alamos sighted a
fireball on 28 December. It was not falling as fast as a falling star
(meteor) he continued to watch. For several seconds, at an estimated
altitude of 6,000', the object disappeared with a green flash, lighting
up a small cloud between itself and the witness.
December 20, 1948; Los Alamos, NM
AESS observation post sighted green fireball with a
triangulated
7-8-mile W to E flight path calculated by LaPaz based on another
independent observation at a different site. (Sparks BBU, FOIA)
All during December 1948 and January
1949 the green fireballs continued to invade the New Mexico skies.
Everyone, including the intelligence officers at Kirtland AFB, Air
Defense Command people, Dr. La Paz, and some of the most distinguished
scientists at Los Alamos had seen at least one.
1949
AFOSI Case 16:
January 6, 1949;
Kirtland AFB, NM
3:10 am. An inspector for the AESS saw a brilliant green object for
about two seconds and traveling slower than a meteor and on a flat
trajectory. It disappeared behind the mountains to the west. Documents
at link are for Case 16.
AFOSI Case 17: January 6, 1949;
Albuquerque, NM
3:10 AM. Reliable witness reported a Green Fireball. This case is
listed in the revised Blue Book catalog and also listed in the La Paz
catalog. Few
details. Documents at link are for Cases 16 & 17.
AFOSI Case 18: January 30, 1949;
Elpaso (Near Amarillo and Lamesa), TX.
Not actually a New Mexico case, the object was sighted from NM and
photographed in NM, but actually took place in Texas. This is the
famous Green Fireball report where LaPaz was able to precisely
triangulate the location of the object. b
AFOSI Case 19: January 30, 1949; Roswell, NM
No data.
AFOSI Case 20: January 30, 1949;
Alamogordo, NM.
This is not a White Sands or
Holloman case, but the famous GREEN
FIREBALL event of 5:54 PM Jan 30, 1949, where Lincoln LaPaz was able to
precisely triangulate the location of the object from near Amarillo (at
34°50' N, 104°5' W) to near Lamesa (at 32°48' N,
102°22' W), Texas.
In mid February 1949 a conference was
called at Los Alamos to determine what should be done to further pursue
the investigation. The Air Force, Project Sign, the intelligence people
at Kirtland, and other interested parties had done everything they
could think of and still no answer. Such notable scientists as Dr.
Joseph Kaplan, a world-renowned authority on the physics of the upper
atmosphere, Dr. Edward Teller, of H-bomb fame, and of course Dr. La
Paz, attended, along with a lot of military brass and scientists from
Los Alamos.
AFOSI Case 21: January 30, 1949; occurred at Fort Worth, TX
AFOSI Case 22: February 14,
1949;
Canado, NM
6:40 pm. Two witnesses, somewhat above horizon, stationary then fell in
slight curve to W, brilliant white slightly green color
February 16, 1949 - Los Alamos, NM:
Conference on Aerial Phenomena
This was one conference where there was
no need to discuss whether
or not this special type of UFO, the green fireball, existed. Almost
everyone at the meeting had seen one. The purpose of the conference was
to decide whether the fireballs were natural or man-made and how to
find out more about them.
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. It was recommended
that this phase of the UFO investigation be given to the Air Force's
Cambridge Research Laboratory, since it is the function of this group
to study natural phenomena, and that Cambridge set up a project to
attempt to photograph the green fireballs and measure their speed,
altitude, and size.
Cases 23 and 24 are apparently the same object viewed at
different
or
overlapping times on its trajectory. Case 23 is truck driver
Herman Wilcox at about 6 PM (actually 5:57) from near Grants, NM, and
Case 24 is UNM Prof. Marvin May at 5:57 PM from Albuquerque (who with
his training in meteorite tracking with LaPaz has the more accurate
time than the truck driver). There were also about 100 guards at
Sandia Base including the Officer of the Guard, sighting it at
5:59-6:06 PM evidently.
AFOSI
Case 23: February 17, 1949;
Grants, NM.
Feb. 17, 1949. Near Grants (at 35° 7' ±2' N,
107°47' ±2' W), Sandia Base, and near Albuquerque (at
35° 5' N, 106° 35' W), New Mexico. 5:57-6:06 p.m.
Green Oil Co. truck driver Herman Wilcox, at Chief's Rancho stop on Hwy
66, saw oval luminous white light with faint trail of white smoke in
the SW at about 225° azimuth moving S in vertical climb then
leveled off, then a gradual ascent, disappearing suddenly after several
secs, no clouds in the sky to obscure it.
AFOSI Case 24: February 17, 1949;
Albuquerque, NM.
Univ. of NM Prof. of Civil Engineering Marvin May, an associate of Dr.
Lincoln LaPaz in meteorite tracking, saw a brilliant white object in
the W at 6° elevation at 5:57 p.m. for >6 mins. Object was
first round [1/3 Full Moon in size at this point apparently] then
shifted to ellipse as it approached then appeared to be elongated like
a bent pipe with corners, 1 Full Moon in length and 1/10 in
width. Object made slight climbing turn to the N, shifted to
peach color [yellow-orange?] as it made rapid sharp turning climb to
the S at the end, disappearing in cloudless sky by diminishing in size
and brightness. 100 Sandia Base guards including Officer of the
Guard saw a yellow-orange cigar or yellow-red cigar-shaped object for 7
minutes from 5:59 to 6:06 p.m. (BB Maxwell Microfilm Roll 5, pp.
546-557, NARA Microfilm Roll 88, p. 401, Roll 91, p. 412;
FOIA; Saunders/FUFOR Index) 9 mins 100+ 1 UNM Civil Engr Prof /
meteorite tracker (LaPaz assoc.)
AFOSI Case 25: February 27, 1949; Los
Alamos, NM.
The report is missing from the BB Microfilm files and, in fact, that is
noted in our findings in document MAXW-PBB5-431. Feb. 27, 1949. Los
Alamos,
New Mexico (35.89° N, 106.31° W). 7:05 p.m. Green-white
fireball seen in horizontal flight from W to E.
(FOIA)
AFOSI Case 26: March 2, 1949; Los
Alamos, NM.
Los Alamos, New Mexico (35.89° N, 106.31° W). 12:10 a.m.
AESS Inspector Sewald saw high speed
light in horizontal flight low in the sky N to S. (FOIA; FUFOR
Index)
AFOSI Case 27: March 3, 1949; Los
Alamos, NM.
This report is not an original BB unknown, nor has it been included in
the Comprehensive Catalog of Project Blue Book Unknowns by Brad Sparks.
The report is, however, mentioned in
the BB Microfilm files and listed in the La Paz/AFOSI Catalog. The
behavior of the Green Fireballs is suspect in almost all of the AFOSI
Catalog cases, especially so in this one where the FB is in an almost
vertical descent, something no meteor of any kind can do.
AFOSI Case 28 to 35 (March 6 and 7) are not New Mexico cases but seven
of them occurred
at Camp Hood, TX. UFOs are now moving from where nuclear weapons were
made to where they are stored.
AFOSI Case 36: March 8, 1949; Los
Alamos, NM
6:35 pm. Kirtland AFB Control Tower/AEC Project. S-N, 12,000 to
15,000', horizontal, bright white with greenish tint, 1-2 secs, app 800
mph, either went out or disappeared behind cloud.
AFOSI Case 37: March 8, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
6:35 pm. S to N, 4,000 above terrain, descending at 45-degree angle,
intense white light aluminum colored, elliptical pointed at ends,
slower than twin engined plane, disappeared behind trees.
AFOSI Case 38 and 39 are Camp Hood, TX.
AFOSI Case 40: March 13, 1949;
Albuquerque, NM
9:55 pm. Bluish or greenish, ball-shaped object, with tail of fire,
descending slightly, 2-4 secs, length twice diameter of ball, 1/2
diameter
of full moon.
AFOSI Case 41 occurred between Honolulu and canton Island.
AFOSI Case 42: March 27, 1949;
Tucumcari, NM
6-6:05 PM. Tucumcari, Montoya, New Mexico. Various witnesses, including
police officer, postmaster
(Montoya, N.M.), newspaper editor (Tucumcari Daily News), saw a
contrail-like yellowamber-orange object, length/width ratio 5:1,
1/6 moon's diameter, slowly moving from S (205° azimuth) to W
(254° azimuth) at about 45°-60° elevation (75° at
Montoya moving 180° to 260° azimuth), wiggling slightly, at
first in a vertical orientation [?], dived steeply-leveled-climbed 2-3
times, reversed course once at top of a climb, a bright glitter of
white light at a leveling off. No sound or trail. (FOIA)
AFOSI Case 43: March 27, 1949;
Montoya, NM
6:00 pm. Cat 1, NCP, BBU 159. No directory this date, but support
documents on
Montoya, NM,incident. Orange flame, 10 minutes, long and narrow, length
about 1/6 lunar diameter, width about 1/5 length, faded out in distance.
AFOSI Case 44: March 27, 1949;
Tucumcari, NM
10:13 am. Cat 1, NCP, BBU 159. No directory this date, but support
documents
provided. Bright orange, 15 mins, long and narrow, faded out in
distance.
AFOSI Case 45: March 27, 1949;
Tucumcari, NM
6:00 pm. Orange fire, 15 mins, like kite tail, about size of C-47 at
10,000', disappeared behind hills.
AFOSI Case 46 is Camp Hood, TX
AFOSI Case 47: April 5, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
10:00 pm. S-N, app 300' above S. slope of Fejarito Mt., green w/red
afterglow, 1/2 to 1 sec, tremendous speed. Hatch NCP-3 listing of #1276
has incorrect date and lists a 1948 incident as 1949.
AFOSI Case 48: April 6, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
Has incorrect time of 1205. Should be 0005 or 12:05 am. SE, about
15,000', between dk and lt green, 3-5 sec, very fast.
AFOSI Case 49: April 7, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
1:35 am. West, about 200 yards from top of hill, green, approximately
45 seconds, moved very slowly.
AFOSI Case 50: April 7, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
1:00 am. S to N, green, 5 seconds, moving slowly.
AFOSI Case 51: April 12, 1949:
Albuquerque, NM.
11:04 pm. Project 10073 Record Card: "Observer reported a round, white
object. It was traveling to the NW at a very high rate of speed. It
looked a light following a straight path. It disappeared as though the
light were extinguished.".
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in New
Mexico-West Texas Area - NARA-PBB90 1011-1014
AFOSI Cases 52 & 53 are not New Mexico cases. However one was from
El Paso, TX.
AFOSI Case 54: April 22, 1949; Cliff, NM
Cat 1, NCP, No BBU listing. 1505 Zulu. No directory this date but
supporting documents
provided which state that the observer sighted an aluminum-colored
object
which appeared to be a round, flat, thin, disc-shaped object. It was
heading East and
was in view for two minutes before dissapearing behind some mountains.
AFOSI Case 55: April 24, 1949;
Arrey,
NM (Blue Book Unknwn Case 358)
Major case (click link) C.B. Moore/General Mills Incident. l0:30 a.m.
Witnesses: General
Mills meteorologist and balloon expert C.B. Moore and others on a
balloon launch crew. One white, round ellipsoid, about 2.5 times as
long as wide.
AFOSI Case 56: April 25, 1949. Springer
Lake, NM
6:30-7:30 a.m., 8:50 a.m. Mr. Abreu saw silvery white spherical objects
like
Christmas ornaments fly over the lake at high speed, reappearing
repeatedly with a high pitched whistling sound a few secs each time.
Several formations were seen over a period of an hour. (Sparks BBU,
FOIA; FUFOR Index)
Concern over UFOS over AEC bases (Los Alamos, Sandia Base, Camp Hood)
is proven in a May 31, 1949 a letter
sent from OSI to District Commander, OSI, mentioning the conference
held on 27-28 April, 1949. Documents:
NARA-PBB88-635-639.
AFOSI Case 57: April 28, 1949; Tucson, AZ
AFOSI Case 58: April 30, 1949; Albuquerque, NM
10:15 pm. E to W, 59-degrees above horizon, blue green, 2 secs 2
desgrees, round, tenth of moon, went out.W
May 1949; Los Alamos, NM
An AEC technician and hundreds of other witnesses observed 13
saucer-shaped objects in a straight-line formation for about 45-minutes
at about 9,000 feet. The informant filed a report with NICAP in 1949.
AFOSI Case 59: May 3, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
9:43 pm. S-N, 10-degrees to 15-degrees above horizon, bright white
light, 10 seconds, very fast up to 1,000 mph.
AFOSI Case 60: May 3, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
9:25 pm, 9:43 pm, 10:05 pm. S to W, 10-15 degrees above horizon, white,
3-7 secs, large - similar to size of airplane landing lights, very fast.
AFOSI Case 61: May 3, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
9:26 pm, 9;40 pm. ESE to NWN, 10-15 degrees above the horizon, 5 sec
1st, 2 sec 2nd, baseball diamond lights, same speed as aircraft landing.
AFOSI Case 62: May 6,
1949; Camp Hood, TX
AFOSI Case 63: May 6, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
N-S, 5 degrees above horizon, was going down at an angle of 30-35
degrees, green, fraction of a second, round, approximate size of full
moon, very high rate of speed, disappeared west of Jemez Mtns.
AFOSI Case 64-66: May 7,8, 1949 are all Camp Hood, TX.
AFOSI Case 67-68: May 8,9, are Tucscon, AZ.
AFOSI Case 69: May 12, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
AFOSI Case 70: May 16, 1949 is Tucson, AZ
Brig.
General Carroll, Director of Special Investigations, HQ, USAF,
Washington, DC. Subject: Summary of Observations of Aerial Phenomena in
the New Mexico Area, Dec1948-May 1950.
Next page
AFOSI Case 71: June 2, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 72: June 11, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
June 14, 1949; White Sands, NM
Two UFOs pace rocket. Originally listed as June 10th, this incident
occurred on June 14th. It
involved the famous pacing of a V-2 rocket and a high-speed ascent,
reported by Commander R. B. McLaughlin. McLaughlin received reports
from five observation posts at all points of the compass. All had
witnessed the performance of two circular UFOs.
AFOSI Case 73: June 20, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 74: June 20, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 75: June 24, 1949 is Mesa, AZ
AFOSI Case 76: June 27, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 77-79: June 29,30 and July 11, 1949 are not New Mexico.
July 24, 1949; Socorro, NM
3:26 pm. Surprisingly absent from the LaPaz catalog. Green fireball
sighting. Dr. William D. Crozier of the New Mexico
School of Mines collected dust samples showing presence of copper
particles possibly originating from the fireball. (Sparks BBU, FOIA)
AFOSI Case 80-82: July 28, 1949 are all Killeen; TX
AFOSI Case 83-84: July 30, 1949 are Camp Hood, TX
AFOSI Case 85: August 6, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
8:00 pm. E-W, bluish green, 1-2 secs, round, bigger than a falling
star, disappeared behind building.
AFOSI Case 86: August 6, 1949; Los Cruces, NM
8:00 pm. E-W, 3-degrees to 9 degrees above horizon, curve going, then
fell in almost vertical direction, 4-5 secs, round, app 6" in diameter,
disappeared gradually.
AFOSI Case 87: August 6, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
8:00 pm. Vertical, 2-degrees to 7-degrees above the horizon, straight
vertical flight, bright white slight reddish cast, 3 secs, round, 1/2
size of the moon, exploded then pieces died out.
AFOSI Case 88: August 6, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
8:00 pm and 8:05 pm. E-W, 2-degrees to 12 degrees above
horizon, 10 degrees off vertical, large as auto spotlight at arm's
length, disappeared behind building.
AFOSI Case 89: August 6, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
8:15 pm. SW, straight flight app 20 degrees vertical decline, whitish
yellow (red trail), 1 sec, round, twice size of a normal falling star,
extremely fast twice as fast as falling star, disappeared behind
building.
AFOSI Case 90: August 6, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
8:30 pm. N, constant slight curve earthward, white (bluish), 1 sec,
round, app smaller than clenched fist, similar to falling star, went
out.
AFOSI Case 91: August 6, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
8:20 pm. Descending to earth vertically, 15 degrees above horizon,
green, 1-1-1/2 secs, round to pear shaped, 500 watt bulb at 1/5th mile
away, 10 degrees in 1-1/2 secs at 2 miles, disappeared.
AFOSI Case 92: August 6, 1949; White Sands, NM
AFOSI Case 93: August 6, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
AFOSI Case 94 to 105 are Camp Hood/Killeen Base cases for August 10-12,
1949.
In the late summer of 1949, Cambridge
established Project Twinkle to
solve the mystery. The project called for establishing three
cinetheodolite stations near White Sands, New Mexico. A cinetheodolite
is similar to a 35 mm. movie camera except when you take a photograph
of an object you also get a photograph of three dials that show the
time the photo was taken, the azimuth angle, and the elevation angle of
the camera. If two or more cameras photograph the same object, it is
possible to obtain a very accurate measurement of the photographed
object's altitude, speed, and size.
Project Twinkle was a bust. Absolutely
nothing was photographed.
Of the three cameras that were planned for the project, only one was
available. This one camera was continually being moved from place to
place. If several reports came from a certain area, the camera crew
would load up their equipment and move to that area, always arriving
too late. Any duck hunter can tell you that this is the wrong tactic;
if you want to shoot any ducks pick a good place and stay put, let the
ducks come to you.
(Fran Ridge: Future readers
[particularly skeptics] noting deleted paragraphs taken from a known
reference such as Ruppelt's book, The Report on Unidentified Flying
Objects, might complain that we used only the paragraphs we wanted in
order to support our personal theories. So, for the record we have left
everything in. However, Brad Sparks has set the record straight:
Ruppelt lied his head off and claims "Project Twinkle was a bust.
Absolutely nothing was photographed." We've just been discussing
one of several Project Twinkle UFO trackings, which occurred Apr 27,
May 24, Aug. 31, 1950. The rest of the paragraph is false too,
about one camera "continually being moved from place to place ...
always arriving too late" and that there was only one Twinkle camera
[the entire White Sands missile camera and theodolite tracking network
was put on Twinkle alert, and TWO camera stations were on special
24-hour Twinkle "constant watch" one of which was at Vaughn]
Ruppelt read the whole Twinkle final report of Nov 27, 1951, and
Holloman July 25, 1951, detailed report and the individual sighting
reports all of which were in his BB files, and he even made a point of
referring to his efforts to track down more info on these cases, in the
Grudge/BB Status Reports and in his book, so he knew this was
false. The one Twinkle camera that could be spared from missile
tracking duty was set up in Vaughn, NM, because LaPaz had identified
that as a triangulated origination point for many green fireballs, and
then it was moved back to White Sands/Holloman on Nov 5, 1950, and
that's it, it didn't get "continually moved."
The Ruppelt record continues:
The people trying to operate Project
Twinkle were having financial
and morale trouble. To do a good job they needed more and better
equipment and more people, but Air Force budget cuts precluded this.
Moral support was free but they didn't get this either.
When the Korean War started, Project
Twinkle silently died, along
with official interest in green fireballs.
(Sparks: ...which he knew was a lie since he had the reports showing
that the one-year long $40,000 Project Twinkle actually STARTED just
before the Korean War, on April 1, 1950, NOT ended, and extended
through to March 31, 1951. Elsewhere in his book Ruppelt refers
to the White Sands films of April-May 1950 (omitting Aug 1950 of
course).
When I organized Project Blue Book in
the summer of 1951 I'd never
heard of a green fireball. We had a few files marked "Los Alamos
Conference," "Fireballs," "Project Twinkle," etc., but I didn't pay any
attention to them.
Then one day I was at a meeting in Los
Angeles with several other
officers from ATIC, and was introduced to Dr. Joseph Kaplan. When he
found we were from ATIC, his first question was, "What ever happened to
the green fireballs?" None of us had ever heard of them, so he quickly
gave us the story. He and I ended up discussing green fireballs. He
mentioned Dr. La Paz and his opinion that the green fireballs might be
man-made, and although he respected La Paz's professional ability, he
just wasn't convinced. But he did strongly urge me to get in touch with
Dr. La Paz and hear his side of the story.
When I returned to ATIC I spent several
days digging into our
collection of green fireball reports. All of these reports covered a
period from early December 1948 to 1949. As far as Blue Book's files
were concerned, there hadn't been a green fireball report for a year
and a half.
I read over the report on Project
Twinkle and the few notes we had
on the Los Alamos Conference, and decided that the next time I went to
Albuquerque I'd contact Dr. La Paz. I did go to Albuquerque several
times but my visits were always short and I was always in a hurry so I
didn't get to see him.
It was six or eight months later before
the subject of green
fireballs came up again. I was eating lunch with a group of people at
the AEC's Los Alamos Laboratory when one of the group mentioned the
mysterious kelly-green balls of fire. The strictly unofficial
bull-session-type discussion that followed took up the entire lunch
hour and several hours of the afternoon. It was an interesting
discussion because these people, all scientists and technicians from
the lab, had a few educated guesses as to what they might be. All of
them had seen a green fireball, some of them had seen several.
One of the men, a private pilot, had
encountered a fireball one
night while he was flying his Navion north of Santa Fe and he had a
vivid way of explaining what he'd seen. "Take a soft ball and paint it
with some kind of fluorescent paint that will glow a bright green in
the dark," I remember his saying, "then have someone take the ball out
about 100 feet in front of you and about 10 feet above you. Have him
throw the ball right at your face, as hard as he can throw it. That's
what a green fireball looks like."
The speculation about what the green
fireballs were ran through
the usual spectrum of answers, a new type of natural phenomenon, a
secret U.S. development, and psychologically enlarged meteors. When the
possibility of the green fireballs' being associated with
interplanetary vehicles came up, the whole group got serious. They had
been doing a lot of thinking about this, they said, and they had a
theory.
The green fireballs, they theorized,
could be some type of
unmanned test vehicle that was being projected into our atmosphere from
a "spaceship" hovering several hundred miles above the earth. Two years
ago I would have been amazed to hear a group of reputable scientists
make such a startling statement. Now, however, I took it as a matter of
course. I'd heard the same type of statement many times before from
equally qualified groups.
Turn the tables, they said, suppose
that we are going to try to go to
a far planet. There would be three phases to the trip: out through the
earth's atmosphere, through space, and the re-entry into the atmosphere
of the planet we're planning to land on. The first two phases would
admittedly present formidable problems, but the last phase, the
re-entry phase, would be the most critical. Coming in from outer space,
the craft would, for all practical purposes, be similar to a meteorite
except that it would be powered and not free falling. You would have
myriad problems associated with aerodynamic heating, high aerodynamic
loadings, and very probably a host of other problems that no one can
now conceive of. Certain of these problems could be partially solved by
laboratory experimentation, but nothing can replace flight testing, and
the results obtained by flight tests in our atmosphere would not be
valid in another type of atmosphere. The most logical way to overcome
this difficulty would be to build our interplanetary vehicle, go to
the planet that we were interested in landing on, and hover several
hundred miles up. From this altitude we could send instrumented test
vehicles down to the planet. If we didn't want the inhabitants of the
planet, if it were inhabited, to know what we were doing we could put
destruction devices in the test vehicle, or arrange the test so that
the test vehicles would just plain burn up at a certain point due to
aerodynamic heating.
They continued, each man injecting his
ideas.
Maybe the green fireballs are test
vehicles-somebody else's. The
regular UFO reports might be explained by the fact that the manned
vehicles were venturing down to within 100,000 or 200,000 feet of the
earth, or to the altitude at which atmosphere re-entry begins to get
critical.
I had to go down to the airstrip to get
a CARGO Airlines plane
back to Albuquerque so I didn't have time to ask a lot of questions
that came into my mind. I did get to make one comment. From the
conversations, I assumed that these people didn't think the green
fireballs were any kind of a natural phenomenon. Not exactly, they
said, but so far the evidence that said they were a natural phenomenon
was vastly outweighed by the evidence that said they weren't.
During the kidney jolting trip down the
valley from Los Alamos to
Albuquerque in one of the CARGO Airlines' Bonanzas, I decided that I'd
stay over an extra day and talk to Dr. La Paz.
He knew every detail there was to know
about the green fireballs.
He confirmed my findings, that the genuine green fireballs were no
longer being seen. He said that he'd received hundreds of reports,
especially after he'd written several articles about the mysterious
fireballs, but that all of the reported objects were just greenish
colored, common, everyday meteors.
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.
Then there were other points of
dissimilarity between a meteor and
the green fireballs. The trajectory of the fireballs was too flat. Dr.
La Paz explained that a meteor doesn't necessarily have to arch down
across the sky, its trajectory can appear to be flat, but not as flat
as that of the green fireballs. Then there was the size. Almost always
such descriptive words as "terrifying," "as big as the moon," and
"blinding" had been used to describe the fireballs. Meteors just aren't
this big and bright.
No ---Dr. La Paz didn't think that they
were meteors.
Dr. La Paz didn't believe that they
were meteorites either.
A meteorite is accompanied by sound and
shock waves that break
windows and stampede cattle. Yet in every case of a green fireball
sighting the observers reported that they did not hear any sound.
But the biggest mystery of all was the
fact that no particles of a
green fireball had ever been found. If they were meteorites, Dr. La Paz
was positive that he would have found one. He'd missed very few times
in the cases of known meteorites. He pulled a map out of his file to
show me what he meant. It was a map that he had used to plot the spot
where a meteorite had hit the earth. I believe it was in Kansas. The
map had been prepared from information he had obtained from dozens of
people who had seen the meteorite come flaming toward the earth. At
each spot where an observer was standing he'd drawn in the observer's
line of sight to the meteorite. From the dozens of observers he had
obtained dozens of lines of sight. The lines all converged to give Dr.
La Paz a plot of the meteorite's downward trajectory. Then he had been
able to plot the spot where it had struck the earth. He and his crew
went to the marked area, probed the ground with long steel poles, and
found the meteorite.
This was just one case that he showed
me. He had records of many
more similar expeditions in his file.
Then he showed me some other maps. The
plotted lines looked
identical to the ones on the map I'd just seen. Dr. La Paz had used the
same techniques on these plots and had marked an area where he wanted
to search. He had searched the area many times but he had never found
anything.
These were plots of the path of a green
fireball.
When Dr. La Paz had finished, I had one
last question, "What do
you think they are?"
He weighed the question for a few
seconds then he said that all he
cared to say was that he didn't think that they were a natural
phenomenon. He thought that maybe someday one would hit the earth and
the mystery would be solved. He hoped that they were a natural
phenomenon.
After my talk with Dr. La Paz I can
well understand his apparent
calmness on the night of September 18, 1954, when the newspaper
reporter called him to find out if he planned to investigate this
latest green fireball report. He was speaking from experience, not
indifference, when he said, "But I don't expect to find anything."
If the green fireballs are back, I hope
that Dr. La Paz gets an
answer this time.
The story of the UFO now goes back to
late January 1949, the time when
the Air Force was in the midst of the green fireball mystery. In
another part of the country another odd series of events was taking
place. The center of activity was a highly secret area that can't be
named, and the recipient of the UFO's, which were formations of little
lights, was the U.S. Army. (See Camp Hood, Texas Page)
AFOSI Case 106: August 14, 1949;
Alamogordo, NM
August
20, 1949; Las Cruces, NM
At about 10:00 p.m. on 8/20/49, The noted astronomer Dr. Clyde Tombaugh
(Discoverer of Pluto), his wife, and his mother-in-law were in the yard
of his Las Cruces home, admiring what Tombaugh described as a sky of
rare
transparency, when Tombaugh, looking almost directly towards zenith,
spotted an array of pale yellow lights moving rapidly across the sky
towards the southeast. He called them to the attention of the two
others,
who saw them just before they disappeared halfway to the horizon. The
entire array subtended an angle which Tombaugh put at about one degree,
and it took only a few seconds to cross 50 or 60 degrees of sky. The
array
comprised six "windowlike" rectangles of light, formed into a symmetric
pattern; they moved too fast for aircraft, too slowly for a meteor, and
made no sound. Tombaugh was quited as saying, "I have never seen
anything
like it before or since, and I have spent a lot of time where the night
sky could be seen well." (McDonald)
AFOSI Cases 107-109 are not New Mexico
cases.
AFOSI Case 110: August 30, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 111:
September 15, 1949; Albuquerque, NM
AFOSI Case 112: September 19, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 113: September 18, 1949; Sandia Base, NM
AFOSI Case 114 is not New Mexico.
AFOSI
Cases 115-119: September 27, 1949; Sandia Base, NM
AFOSI Case 115: September 27, 1949; Sandia Base, NM
3:00 am. From the SE, 45-degrees above the horizon, traveling tangent
to earth, bright blue to white, 4 secs, round, about size of softball
at 300 yards, 45-degrees in 4-seconds, obscured by building.
AFOSI Case 116: Sandia Base, NM
3:00 am. To the north, 10-degrees above horizon, yellow, 3-4 secs,
round, size of baseball at 25 yards, same rate as shooting star, died
out.
AFOSI Case 117: Sandia Base, NM
3:00 am. SE to NW, 15-20 degrees above horizon, traveling in arc toward
earth, bright green, 2 secs, round, same size as perimeter fence light
at distance of about 200 yards, 45-degrees in 2 secs, brightened then
went out.
AFOSI Case 118: Sandia Base, NM
1:30 am. S-N, 20 degrees above horizon, made a gentle arc toward earth,
dark blue, 2 secs, conical w/tail twice its diameter, looked like a
skyrocket, 50 degrees in 2 secs, burnt out.
AFOSI Case 119: Sandia Base, NM
1:30 am. 45-degrees above horizon, moving tangent to earth, green, 1
sec, round, fist at arm's length, 20 degrees in 1 sec, burnt out.
AFOSI Case 120: September 30, 1949; Sandia Base, NM
AFOSI Case 121: October 2, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 122-123: October 6, 1949; Mescalero, NM
AFOSI Case 124-125: October 6, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
AFOSI Case 126: October 6, 1949; Albuquerque, NM
AFOSI Case 127: October 6, 1949; Wagon Mound, NM
AFOSI Case 128: October 6, 1949; Albuquerque, NM
AFOSI Cases 129, 141, 143-148: October
& November 1949; Albuquerque and Los Alamos,
NM
AFOSI Case 129: October 7, 1949; Albuquerque, NM
9:20 pm. Straight vertical drop, 35-degrees above the horizon, yellow
to green, 1 sec, round, half a moon, dropped 15-degrees in 1 sec,
behind Sandia Mountains.
AFOSI Case 130: October 10, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
4:06 am. SE to NE, 3,000' above observation point, parallel to surface
of earth, 4-5 secs, small, appeared to be slower than a meteor,
disappeared.
AFOSI Case 131: October 10, 1949; Sandia Base, NM
1:07 am. W to E, 45-degrees above horizon, bluish green, 15 secs,
round, size of fist at arm's length, slow, died out.
AFOSI Case 132: October 10, 1949; Sandia Base, NM
1:07 am. SW to NE, 45 degrees above horizon, executed dives, greenish
blue/red sparks trailing, 4 secs, round, size of fist at arm's length,
slow, faded out.
AFOSI Case 133: October 10, 1949; Sandia Base, NM
1:07 am. N to NE, 45-degrees above horizon, green, 15 secs, round, size
of fist at arm's length, slow, burned out.
AFOSI Case 134: October 11, 1949; Roswell, NM
8:10 pm. Six witnesses, appeared moving to N and angling slightly to E,
maneuvered up and down, light green turned orange, 45-minutes, round,
size of basketball.
AFOSI Case 135: October 11, 1949; Alamogordo, NM
10:45 am (11:00 am). NW to SE, if size of B-29 appeared to be 150,000',
white, 10-15 secs, round dish shape, 2" in diameter at arm's length,
very fast compared with falling star, faded from view.
AFOSI Case 136: October 12, 1949; Roswell, NM
11:15 am. Three witnesses, S to NE, 3,500', smooth arc, white (silver),
45-60 secs, round probably elliptical, faster than jet aircraft, went
beyond range of vision.
AFOSI
Case 137: October 12, 1949. Alamagordo, NM
11:15 am. An NCO reported a
white or
aluminum colored object at 5-10 mile range, which came from the south,
then veered to the NE. If size of B-29 it appeared to be at 35,000'.
Duration was 45-60 seconds and estimated speed was 1500 mph. At the
closest point the round object appeared to be 4" in diameter (at arm's
length?).
AFOSI Case 138 is from
Tucson, AZ
AFOSI Case
139: October 14, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 140: October 14, 1949; Albuquerque, NM
AFOSI Case 142:
October 21, 1949. Roswell, NM
9:30 pm. Cat 8, NCP, No BBU listing. Photograph. No directory this date
but
supporting documents provided. The photographer, an NCO with the 509th
Bomb Group, took the photograph using a tripod. The object was
motionless for thirty minutes. The sighting would have been written off
except that the witness was convinced the object was not a celestial
body but a light on a structure, which didn't materialize when the area
was later checked.
To Director of R&D, HQ,
USAF,
Washinton, DC and AMC, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio. Subject:
Light Phenomena
Nov 7,
1949; Report on Conference on "Green
Fireballs"
Two SECRET letters, dated December 9, 1949 and
December 21, 1949
To Director of R&D, HQ, Washinton, DC and Commanding General, AMC,
Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio. Subject: Light Phenomena.
AFOSI Case 149:
November 27, 1949; McIntosh, NM
AFOSI
Case 150: November 27,
1949 is Winslow, AZ.
AFOSI
Case 151: November 27, 1949;
Albuquerque,
NM
5:49 pm. Kirtland AFB, NM, fireball-like object seen moving
east to
west.Observer: Charles E. Lancaster, Socorro, NM, shape: round,
size: large as washtub, speed: slower than a meteor, color: pale green.
Observer: John W Rapp, Albuquerque, NM, shape: egg shape, size: egg at
arms length, speed: 3-4 seconds to cover 15 - 20 degrees, color: bright
blue white, observer: W.W.Jones, Chief Controller, Kirtland AFB, NM,
shape:____, size: lead pencil eraser at arms length, speed: 5 to 7
degrees per second, color: blue white.
AFOSI Case 152: November 27,
1949;
Socorro, NM
AFOSI
Case 153: December 3, 1949;
Alamogordo, NM
6:05 pm. Observer Charles S. Bagley, civilian employee at
Holloman
AFB,
saw a round, green colored with a fringe of orange, object moving east
to west in the sky. The object traveled in an arc downward and seemed
to prescribe a small loop about midway in its travel. Object appeared
somewhat larger than Venus.
AFOSI
Case 154: December 4, 1949;
Albuquerque, NM
At 1935 hrs. MST, Mr. James D. McAdam, Salesman, New York Life
Insurance Company, at Albuquerque, NM, observed a round, green, object
traveling nearly horizontal east to west in a sloping descent. Object
sighted for 2 to 3 seconds before disappearing like a person blowing
out a candle. Object was seen to the north of Albuquerque, NM.
AFOSI Case
155: December 4, 1949; Los Alamos, NM
At the same time of 1935 hrs. MST, at Los Alamos, NM. Mr.
Robert M.
Potter and J.H. Parsons, employees of the Los Alamos Scientific
Laboratory, observed a round, green, object in a sloping descent,
moving east to northeast. Object was seen to the north of the observers.
AFOSI Case 156: December 5, 1949;
Carrizozo, NM
At 1930 to 1945 hrs.
MST,
witness and his wife while driving east of Carrizozo, NM, approximately
50 miles NE of Alamogordo, saw a teardrop-shaped fireball descending
towards the ground. As the object neared the ground it appeared to
increase in size. The speed of the object was very slow. A trail of
bluish-green light was tapering off of the fireball.
AFOSI Case 157: December 5,
1949; Tularosa, NM
AFOSI Case 158: December 9, 1949; Farmington, NM
AFOSI
Case 159: December 13,1949; Alamogordo, NM
8:08 pm. Special Agent S/A Robert R. Johns,
OSI,
Holloman AFB, while driving from Alamogordo to Holloman AFB, NM,
observed a round object in the sky. Object changed color from white to
amber, to red, and to green. The object was observed for approximately
9 minutes from 2008 to 2017 hours. During the entire sighting a flame
appeared to shoot out from various positions on the object. The object
was stationary for for approximately 5 minutes, then it began to move
downward and to the right.
1950
AFOSI Case 160: January 6, 1950;
Alamogordo, NM
AFOSI Case 161: January 7, 1950;
Corona, NM
Cat 1, NCP, BBU 206. S of Corona. 10:15 p.m. Holloman AFB Asst.
Maintenance Officer Risley while driving saw a yellowish-white ball of
light at about 45° elevation descending at a 60° angle,
changing color to orange with trailing flame, to just above a mountain
range where it leveled off becoming bright blue-green traveling 10°
E [?] until it dropped behind the mountain.
AFOSI Case 162-164: January 9, 1950;
Los Alamos,
NM
Three scientists at Los Alamos observed a round incandescent green
object in straight horizontal flight for 2-3 seconds. Object
disappeared behind trees. Three separate sightings.
The next two sightings, actually three nights on the 6th, 12th and
13th, appear to have been of the star Capella as noted on the BB/Grudge
file in the north setting low on the horizon, at 3.5 degs elevation at
azimuth 325 degs (about NNW) at 6:05 AM MST. Also possible was
Deneb in the NE at 12 degs elevation azimuth 44 degs.
AFOSI Case 165: January 12, 1950;
Holloman
AFB, NM
Cat 1, NCP, No BBU listing. No directory this date but supporting
documents provided.
7:00
pm. Observed to the
west, the object reportedly changed altitude erratically. Object was
white and changed to green and red over a period of 5 minutes. As noted
above this may
have been a star.
AFOSI
Case 166:
January 13, 1950;
Holloman AFB, NM
This one also sounds like a star, but was also listed on the LaPaz
catalog. PFC
John M. Gusich, Holloman AFB, observed a bright white object that
changed color to red and green in northern sky. Object moved
erratically up and down. Observable celestial phenomena or planets that
may account for the sighting: None. Reference made to OSI case
160,
January 6, 1950, Alamogordo, 2230 hours, by same observer.
AFOSI Case 167: January 27, 1950; is Scullville, NJ
AFOSI Case 168: February 7, 1950; Bt.
Tucumcari
& Kirtland AFB, NM
At 1955 hours. Cpl Edward S. Brunskoie and Cpl Robert W Pound, of
the Office Of Special Investigations, 17th District, Kirtland AFB, NM,
observed a reddish-green round object moving south southeast to east in
a straight line for 4 to 6 seconds. The speed of the object was that of
a meteor. Object appeared twice the size of evening star.
AFOSI Case 169: February 7, 1950; Bt.
Tucumcari
& Kirtland AFB, NM
Between 1945 and 2000 hours. Capt. Seth Armstead, Kirtland AFB, NM,
while flying an aircraft between Tucumcari, NM, and Kirtland AFB, NM,
observed a fireball 10 degrees south of the aircraft. The fireball was
moving east to west in a flat trajectory. The fireball appeared to
travel 5 to 6 times as fast as the aircraft.
AFOSI Case 170: February 15, 1950; Sandia
Base, NM
AFOSI Case 171: February 18, 1950;
Holloman
AFB, NM
One of the witnesses, Major Haynor, also made a UFO report for AFOSI
Case 189 on March 5th. But on February 18th, Major William J. Haynor,
Air Provost Marshal, Holloman AFB, William E. Royal, Air Police
Squadron, Holloman AFB, and Rayburn F. Gotzinger, Base Service
Squadron, Holloman AFB, observed a white to orange round object that
gradually changed to the shape of an ice-cream cone in the northeartern
part of the sky for 1 hour and 44 minutes. The object appeared to be
the size of a coffee cup held at arm's length. The observers were
driving from Holloman AFB to Oscuro, New Mexico, in the northern part
of the White Sands Missile Range.
AFOSI Case 172: February 20, 1950; Holloman AFB, NM
(Indented paragraphs are quotes from
Bruce Maccabee):
On February 21 an observation
post,
manned by two people, was set up at
Holloman with a theodolite, telescope and camera. The post
was manned only from sunrise to sunset. The observers saw
nothing unusual during a month of operation. Then the scientists
decided to begin a constant 24 hour watch on the first of April that
would last for six months, with Land-Air personnel operating
cinetheodolites (theodolites with movie cameras) and with Holloman AFB
personnel manning spectrographic cameras and radio frequency
receivers. Thus began Project Twinkle with the high hopes of
solving the fireball/saucer mystery.
It was in February 1950, that the 4925th Test Group (Atomic) set
up shop at Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Is the following just
a coincidence?
Blue Book Unknown #642
There is a listing in the original Blue
Book unknowns which is item #642, for February 24, 1950 Albuquerque,
New Mexico. However, there were seven sightings that day. The first one
started at 1:55 p.m.
AFOSI
Case 173: Feb.
24, 1950;
Albuquerque, NM
1:55 pm. To W or SW, 20-degrees to 23-degrees above the horizon,
straight flight, white, round, compared to size of upper part of
the moon as it rises, 1.5 mins to cover 2-degrees. This is Blue Book
case 642. Witnesses:
Municipal Airport Weather Observers Luther McDonald, Harrison Manson.
One white, slightly elongated oval, compared to the size of the upper
part of the rising moon, was observed for 1.5 minutes through
a theodolite while it flew straight and level.
AFOSI Case 174: February 24, 1950; Albuquerque, NM
2:00 pm. Albuquerque, New Mexico. E by SE, about 20-degrees above the
horizon, bright white, 20-30 secs, round,
compared to size of weather balloon as it disappeared in the distance
very slow faded out of sight, very slow, faded out of sight. Not listed
in the BB unknowns.
AFOSI Case 175: February
24, 1950; Datil, NM
7:30 pm. NW, white changing to red and green, 2 hours and 30 minutes,
round, 1-degree per 2 minutes, disappeared.
Later that same day there was another sighting, but this one
involves photographs. Both incidents are listed in the updated list by
Brad Sparks.
7:30
PM (MST). Stanfield and other Holloman AFB Photographic
Branch project staff for tracking aerial phenomena at the Datil
observation post saw and photographed a circular luminous object 15.31
arcmins (0.2552 degrees) in diameter with a 3.785 degree trail, using
1-5 Cineflex camera with 3" focal length lens.
The following are the best of the four Feb 24 afternoon incidents.
Saucer-like object sighted by
several witnesses for 20 minutes, estimated at 100 foot across, moved
at erratic speeds, then went almost straight up!!!!!
AFOSI Case 176: February 24, 1950; Los
Alamos, NM
1:45 pm. E then turned W, 25,000 to 30,000 feet, white object, kept
flashing
like a mirror in the sun, 20 minutes, very fast, went straight up and
out of sight. Not listed in BB unknowns but very interesting.. Observed
by Chemical Operator.
AFOSI Case 177: February 24, 1950; Los
Alamos, NM
1:40 pm. E-W, W-E, then straight up, 30,000 feet, silvery white, 20
minutes, "hovering and moving as if observing and then moving to new
location", went practically straight up and out of sight. Witness:
Chemical Operator.
AFOSI Case 178: February 24, 1950; Los
Alamos, NM
1:15 pm. Erratic, generally NE, 20,000 to 30,000 feet, silvery, "one
hundred feet across if at 20,000 to 30,000 feet", 15 minutes,
"apparently saucer shaped", as fast or faster than sound, disappeared
to NE at 70-degrees. Inspector, AESS.
AFOSI Case 179: February 24, 1950; Los
Alamos, NM
Bt 1:15 and 2 pm. Circled then went east, intermittant vapor trail,
considerable altitude,
aluminum, spherical, rather large, speed erratic. Inspector, AESS.
3:45 p.m. Twelve witnesses, all
Atomic Energy Commission security inspectors, reported, heading toward
the ground, a cylinder with
tapered
ends, silver and flashing, flew from very slow to very fast, fluttered
and
oscillated, and changed course. Observations by individuals varied from
3 seconds to 2 minutes. Circular like a plane fuselage.
AFOSI Case 181: Feb. 25, 1950;
Albuquerque, NM
9:15 pm. From towards the south, appeared 20-degrees above the horizon,
almost vertical (descent), bright greenish white, 1-1/2 seconds, tear
drop shaped, three times the size of a shooting star, and slightly
slower, appeared to burn out.
AFOSI Case 182: Feb. 25, 1950; Datil, NM
2:00 am. NW, white changing to red and green, 30 minutes, round,
1-degree in 2 minutes, disappeared behind mountain.
AFOSI Case 183 - 187: Feb. 25, 1950;
Los
Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 183: Feb 25, 1950, Los Alamos, New Mexico
2:10 pm. S to N, 1 to 3 miles at 30-degrees above horizon, metallic, 2
minutes, oblong, 10-15', 40 mph, went below horizon.
AFOSI Case 184: Feb. 25, 1950; Los Alamos, NM
3:45 pm. N-SWS, very high, white to silver, 30 seconds,
circular, about size of 50-cent piece at its length, very fast,
disappeared into glare of sun.
AFOSI Case 185: Feb. 25, 1950; Los Alamos, NM
3:50 pm. S or SW, 12,000', metallic, few seconds to 2 minutes, as large
or larger
than an average plane, fast, faded from view.
AFOSI
Case 186: February 25, 1950;
Los Alamos, NM
3:45 pm (3:55 pm?) Fourteen witnesses, NE-SW, overhead from 4 to 10
miles, traveled with a fluttering motion, silver, few seconds to
2-minutes, round, vary from 1/4" to small airplane, very fast 500 - 15
pph.
AFOSI Case 187: Feb. 25, 1950; Los
Alamos, NM
4:55 pm. E-W, slow speed, disappeared behind trees.Los Alamos
Inspector observed a round shiny silvery object in flight from east to
west about the size of a B-25 fuselage for 10 to 15 seconds.
March 4, 1950; Los Alamos,
NM
The only mention of this incident comes from Project Blue Book
documents, NARA-PBB91-370. No details found.
AFOSI Case 188: March 5, 1950; is Phoenix, AZ
AFOSI Case 189: March 5, 1950; Vaughn,
NM
11:35 am. Traveled 195-degrees, 180-200 mph. Air Provost Marshall
Major William J. Haynor, Holloman AFB, with 5 other witnesses, observed
a bright, round object in straight flight for 1 hour 25 minutes.
Object's apparent size: ping pong ball at arms length. Movie film taken
of the object.
AFOSI Case 190: March 11, 1950.
Holloman AFB, NM.
Cat 1, NCP.
1:00 am. A
ping-pong
ball-like object about 50 mile range was observed moving west in a
straight flight and in a slight descent by an air provost marshall.
Colors changed from light orange to blood red to amber to light green
over 5-minute period.
AFOSI Case
191: March 16, 1950; Farmington, NM
AFOSI Case 192:
March 16, 1950. Farmington, NM
10:00 am. Ten witnesses. NE, over 20,000', skyward at 60-80 degrees,
bright aluminum, 30 minutes, oval and oblong, 1/16" - 1/2" field at
arm's length, faster than conventional aircraft, gradually disappeared.
AFOSI Case 193-198: March 17, 1950. Los
Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 193
3:07 am. One-fourth mile East of Station 340. AESS Inspector saw object
headed earthward, 3 seconds, round, 1/4 size of full Moon, extremely
fast, plunged to earth & 2 explosions were noted prior to
disappearance.
AFOSI Case 194
3:08 am. Approximately 1-1/2 miles NW of Station 350 on Road 2. AESS
Inspector reported very bright object in the NE, level flight,
greenish yellow, 3 seconds, round, 1/4th size of full moon, moderate
speed.
AFOSI Case 195
3:07 am. One-fourth mile east of Station 340. AESS Inspector reported
one or two objects coming straight down, orange and green, long green
tail of light, 2-2-1/2 seconds, tremendous speed, disaapeared as if
explosion on impact with earth or disintegration.
AFOSI Case 196
4:46 am. Station 107. AESS Inspector saw object which formed an arc,
green, 5 seconds, round, quite small, free fall, fell toward earth.
AFOSI Case 197
3:10 am. Spur No. 2. Witnesses heading North on 357 Patrol. AESS
Inspector reported object which seemed to climb change color, start
down & disappear, green turning yellow, 5 seconds, spherical, 1/4th
the size of the Moon, moderate speed, suddenly disappeared.
March 17, 1950; Farmington, NM
Late morning. Unidentified aerial objects moved in numbers over
Farmington. One witness, Clayton J. Boddy, estimated that he
had observed a total
of 20 to 30 disc-shaped objects, including one red one substantially
larger
than the others, moving at high velocity across the Farmington sky on
the late morning. John Eaton, a Farmington realtor,
described
being called out of a barbershop when the excitement began and seeing a
high, fast object suddenly joined by many objects that darted after it.
A former Navy pilot, Eaton put their height at perhaps 15,000 ft. "The
object that has me puzzled was the one we saw that was definitely red.
It was seen by several and stated by all to be red and travelling
northeast at a terrific speed." Eaton also spoke of the way the smaller
objects would "turn and appear
to
be flat, then turn and appear to be round", a description matching
an oscillating disc-shaped object. No one described seeing any
wings or tails, and the emphasis upon the darting, "bee-like" motion
was in several of the accounts. (McDonald)
AFOSI Case 198: March 17, 1950; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 199: March 20, 1950;
Clovis, NM
Cat 11, NCP, BBU. Found in the updated BB Unknown catalog by Brad
Sparks, this incident
is only briefly described, but it is also listed in the LaPaz catalog
as item number 199. Thirty-five miles SE of Clovis, New Mexico, some
time in the morning, a USAF pilot of a T-6 saw a white spherical, then
elongated, object flying at 2,000 mph. The LaPaz catalog says it
happened at 1:15 AM and came from the WNW above 12,000 feet.
AFOSI Case 200: March 21, 1950; Sandai Base, NM
AFOSI Case 201: March 21, 1950; Sandia Base, NM
AFOSI Case 202: March 21, 1950; Sandia Base, NM
AFOSI Case 204: March 22,
1950; Kirtland
AFB, NM
Major sighting. Eleven
members of the elite 4925th Test Group
(atomic)
witnessed a UFO
northest of Kirtland AFB, in broad daylight. Another group of sightings
were reported the previous day. The incidents are backed up by actual
copies of official spot intelligence reports.
AFOSI Case 205: March 22,
1950; Sandia Base, NM
12:10 am. This report is sketchy and also mentioned in a BB document,
NARA-PBB91-370. The ball-shaped object had a blue center with an orange
exterior and was observed in level flight for 1.5 to 3 secs by a
military witness.
March 24, 1950; Sandia Base, NM
3:05 pm and 3:47 pm? Four members of the 8450th MP (Military
Police) Group observed a bright object about the size of a softball at
arms length in the sky going north. The object was observed for
approximately 4 or 5 minutes. The object was round and silver in color.
Object was standing still at first then started traveling around 700
MPH. This is perhaps two separate sightings, one at 1505 hours and
another at 1547 hours. See report of Pvt. Henry D. McMinn Jr.-- time
given as 1547 hours, four objects observed.
Project TWINKLE
Bruce Maccabee:
The efforts of Dr. Kaplan and Major
Oder to start a fireball research
project came to fruition in the spring of 1950. A $20,000
half-year contract was signed with the Land-Air Corporation which
operated the phototheodolites at White Sands. Land-Air was
to set up a 24 hour watch at a location in New Mexico to be specified
by the Air Force and the phototheodolite operators at White Sands were
to film any unusual objects which happened to fly past.
The investigation began on March 24,
1950. By this time there had
been many sightings in the southwest according to the sighting
catalogue compiled by Lt. Col. Rees of the 17th District OSI at
Kirtland, AFB, many of them around Holloman AFB. His catalogue
shows the following data for New Mexico in 1949: the area of
Sandia Base (Albuquerque) - 17 sightings, mostly in the latter half of
the year; Los Alamos area - 26 sightings spread throughout the year;
Vaughn area - none; Holloman AFB/Alamogordo/White Sands area - 12;
other areas in southwest New Mexico-20; total - 75. For the
same areas in the first three months of 1950 there were: Sandia -
6 (all in February); Los Alamos - 7; Vaughn - 1;
Holloman AFB/Alamogordo/White Sands - 6; others - 6; total - 26.
With all these sightings, the scientists were quite confident that they
could catch a fireball or a saucer.
4:20 am. Mentioned as case 206 in the
La Paz catalog this incident was also mentioned in an Air Force doc,
NARA-PBB91-370. An inspector with the AESS at sation 303 saw a round
object coming from the west for one second.
AFOSI Case 207: April
17, 1950; Los Alamos, NM
AFOSI Case 208: April 20, 1950; Los Alamos, NM
April
27, 1950; White Sands Proving
Grounds, NM
Air Force documents prove that successful triangulation of several huge
UFOs flying at very high speed over White Sands was accomplished.
While preparing for an MX-776A Shrike air-to-ground missile test
Charles Riggs and other members of USAF contract Land-Air, Inc.,
Askania theodolite crews saw, tracked, filmed 4 high flying objects on
a cinetheodolite at station P-10 and a theodolite at station M-7.
Triangulation resulted in 30 ft size and 150,000 ft altitude for the
"high speed" objects located between Holloman AFB and Tularosa Peak.
(Sparks)
AFOSI Case 209: May 1, 1950;
Kirtland AFB, NM
On 1 May 1950, at approximately 1510
hours, Sgt. Jean W. Ortman, AF-16274854 and Pvt. Edward B. Hitchcock,
AF-11202257, both members of the 690th AC&W Squadron, Kirtland AFB,
New Mexico, observed a silver metallic object of a cylindrical shape.
Said object was viewed for a second at which time it disintegrated.
This observation was made from the Orderly Room, 690th. Aircraft
Control and Warning Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico
May 24, 1950; White Sands Proving
Grounds, NM
Similar to the April 27th incident, and rating almost as high in value,
but this time triangulation was not effected. During an MX-674 Tarzon
controllable vertical bomb test, Floyd
Fannon
and other USAF contract Land-Air, Inc., Askania theodolite crew members
saw 8 unidentified objects then separately tracked and filmed 2 of the
objects down the North American Aviation missile firing range.
Cinetheodolite station P-8 filmed one object to the NE for 6 frames
(1.0 sec) moving uniformly to the S from azimuth 38°26'59.2" to
38°33'59.2" and elevation 47°32'20" to 47°25'50".
Cinetheodolite station P-10, located 5.6781 miles down range to the N
(to azimuth 347.07723°) from P-8 and 7 ft higher, filmed another
object, hence no triangulation possible, viewed to the E for 74 frames
(14.6 secs) moving uniformly to the N from azimuth 86° 9' 9.2" to
85°47' 9.2" and elevation 25°48' 0" to 25° 7'50". (Sparks)
Green Fireballs not explainable in
terms of common phenomenon and the scientific study must be continued.
Subject: Summary of
observation of Aerila Phenomenon in the New Mexico Area, December
1948-May 1950. Attached was an analyis of the Green Fireball
occurrences in the area by Dr. Lincolm LaPaz.
The digitized version of the actual catalog is presented below in pdf
format and contains 209 incidents logged by Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, most of
them New Mexico incidents and the majority of them Unknowns:
Next are the actual scanned versions, much more difficult to read, but
direct from the Project Blue Book Archive files:
May 29, 1950; White Sands, NM
Theodolite photo
Concerning approval of limited dissemination of Summary of Unknown
Aerial Phenomena, Reported by the 17th District Office of Special
Investigations, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico
July 19, 1950; Datil, NM
Sergeant A. H. Raborn and Corporal Howard D. Locke, Air Police
Squadron, Holloman AFB,, New Mexico, observed two round objects about
the size of a softball, moving slowly ten degrees above the horizon.
Objects changed color from green to red to redish brown. Objects were
very bright. Datil is approximately 40 miles west of Socorro, New
Mexico. This report is not listed on Project Blue Book Master Index.
August
1, 1950; Los Alamos, NM
11:57 pm. Round white object observed at junction of two roads,
approximately one foot in circumference at 1/4 mile.
August 7, 1950; Santa Fe, NM
4 am. Unidentifiable object seen by 1st Lt. Henry W. Frazier USAF 93rd
Fighter Squadron, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, while he was flying 30,000
feet over Santa Fe New Mexico. Lt. Frazier descended towards the object
which disappeared in the distance even though he was flying at 620
MPH. (BBU Sparks, Project 1947;
FUFOR Index)
August 30, 1950. Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, NM
10:45 a.m. During a Bell Aircraft MX-776 Shrike missile test (for the
later Rascal air-to-ground strategic missile) USAF M/Sgt and 8 Bell
Aircraft employees on base saw two glaringly bright circular to
elliptical unidentified objects maintaining relative position to
each other following the B-50 launch aircraft from above on both the
dry run and hot run prior to missile release. Objects gave "strong
glare at all times" not reflected sunlight, maneuvered at high
estimated speeds up to 10x the B-50 or roughly 2,500 mph for short
distances, left no vapor trails, hovered, accelerated rapidly, made
abrupt square turns with apparent size changing to indicate ascent and
descent. (BBU Sparks; Jan Aldrich; McDonald files) 30-minutes.
August 31, 1950; Holloman AFB,
Alamogordo, NM
10 a.m. 1 p.m. (MST). After V-2 missile launch no. 51, Project TWINKLE
Askania theodolite crews tracked and filmed multiple objects
sporadically several times from several different directions at very
high speeds over the course of 3 hrs. Askania cinetheodolite station
P-5 filmed object with major axis varying from 8.65 to 13.243 arcmins
(0.1442° to 0.22072°), minor axis 3.493 arcmins (0.05822°),
one frame per second 60 cm focal length camera, 35 mm color film. Tape
recording of audio reporting. Frames 593 and 595 (2 secs of nearly 10
mins? of film of object) show elevation angle changing from 53°44'
to 52°38' at a rate of 0.37°/sec. Attempted interception by 4
F-86 jets from 93rd FIS, Kirtland AFB, for 1 hr failed to locate
objects, which apparently returned after jets left.Cinetheodolite
observers noted object with definite shape and 3-D depth but indistinct
or not sharp edges, no smoke or trail, object seemed to rock or
oscillate, lost when observer looked away to get angle reading.
(BBU
Sparks, McDonald files; Jan Aldrich)
September
17, 1950; Tatum, NM
Orange-red ball or disc-shaped object was seen moving about Tatum,
approximately 40 miles east of Roswell.
october 20, 1950; Kirtland AFB and Camp Hood, TX
Sightings in New Mexico diminished and suddenly picked up at another
hot area, Camp Hood, TX!
December 6, 1950;
NM/TX Border.
Radar-Inspired National Alert
For an hour the United States military was under a condition of
national emergency during the morning of December 6, 1950. Two days
later the FBI was informed that the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps
had been placed on Immediate High Alert for any information related to
flying saucers. Were these two documented events related? This
paper contains a discussion of the possibility that a flight of saucers
caused the emergency and that the crash of one of them near the
Texas-Mexico border on or about December 6, 1950 caused the immediate
high alert.
Jan
16, 1951;
Artesia, NM
Time
unknown. Witnesses: Two
members of a balloon project from the General Mills . Aeronautical
Research Laboratory, the manger of the Artesia Airport, and three
pilots. The balloon crew was observing their 110' balloon at an
altitude of 112,000' when a dull white, round object was spotted. It
appeared larger than the balloon, but made no movement. Later, the
balloon crew and the others saw two objects from the airport; flying
side-by-side, they circled the balloon and flew away to the northeast.
The second observation lasted about 40 seconds. Note: there is
confusion over the date of this case, with some USAF records showing it
as 1952; however, 1951 appears to be correct.
January 14, 1951; Alamogordo, NM
Two Air Force piolts saw a flat, round white object hovering at high
altitude while they were watching a balloon. (NICAP)
January 16, 1951; Artesia, NM (Blue
Book Unknown #1037)
Daytime. Raymond Dugan and Hazel [Raymond E. Stiles?], members of a
balloon project of General Mills Aeronautical Research Laboratory,
while observing the project's 110 ft balloon at an altitude of 112,000
ft spotted a motionless dull white, round object 5/3 larger [3/5 ??]
than the balloon. Later, the balloon crew, the manager of Artesia
Airport, and 3 pilots saw 2 objects from the airport flying
side-by-side, then circle the balloon and fly away to the NE. Note:
Date confusion, some USAF documents showing it as 1952, some 1951. (BB
1037, BBU Sparks, Berliner; cf. Hynek UFO Exp ch. 6, case DD-8; FUFOR
Index)
Jan. 22, 1951; Nr. Holloman AFB, NM
10 a.m. (EST [sic; PST?] 11 ? a.m.). 50 miles SE [ESE?] of Holloman
AFB. 3-5 mins. (BBU Sparks).
Feb. 19, 1951; Rodeo, NM
USAF? C-54 pilot saw a green flare [fireball?] pass his plane. (BBU
Sparks, Project 1947; FUFOR Index)
March 24, 1951; Holloman AFB,
NM
5:55-6:00 PM (MST). Project TWINKLE
personnel photographed, with a Leica
3c 50 mm camera, an unidentified elliptical object with major axis 8:31
arcmins minor axis 6.43 arcmins (0.1385 degrees and 0.1057 degrees).
April 1, 1951; Los Alamos, NM
Oblong shaped object moving slowly both in horizontal and vertical
directions. Bright appearance.
July 9, 1951. Corona, NM
10:30 p.m. USAF Sgt. Meadows, security guard at Corona Experimental
Radar Site, saw red glowing ball about size of full moon to the W
descending into the tree line for 30 secs and afterglow seen another 10
secs. [Crescent moon was setting in the W about 268°272°
azimuth about 10-10:30 p.m. depending on height of mountains and tree
line to the W.] (BBU Sparks, McDonald files; Jan Aldrich; FUFOR Index)
July 14, 1951; Holloman AFB, NM
During the morning two radar operators at a missile tracking
site caught
a fast-moving object on their scope. At the same time a tracker
watching
a B-29 with binoculars saw a large UFO near the bomber. Another
observer
sighted the UFO and, with a 35 mm camera, shot 200 feet of film. The
UFO
showed on the film as a round, bright spot. (The film has never been
released.) UFOE, 77,84
Aug. 25, 1951;
Albuquerque, NM (Blue Book Unknown Case 955).
9:58 p.m. Witnesses:
Sandia Base Security Guard Hugh Young and wife. A flying wing- shaped
craft passed over their heads at an estimated 800-1,000' altitude with
no sound. Size estimated at 1.5 times wingspan of B-36 bomber,or 350'.
Dark, chordwise stripes on underside, and 6-8 pairs of soft, glowing
lights on trailing edge of "wing". Speed estimated at 300-400 m.p.h.,
object seen for about 30 seconds.
October 2, 1951; White Sands, NM
Three separate reports from White Sands.
Bruce Maccabee:
......in November, 1951, Dr. Louis
Elterman, the
Director of Project Twinkle, who worked at the Atmospheric Physics
Laboratory (APL) of the Geophysical Research Division (GRD) of
the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory (AFCRL), wrote the
final report. According to Dr. Eltermans report, Project Twinkle
was a dismal failure: no information was gained. He
recommended it be discontinued. His recommendation was
accepted.
But, was it a failure? Was there
really no information gained?
Recall the FBI report......which states that
on May 24, 1950, personnel of Land Air saw 8 to 10 unidentified
objects. Isn't this information? Let us look more
carefully at
Project Twinkle.
According to Dr. Elterman, before
Twinkle began there had been an
abnormal number of reports from Vaughn, New Mexico, so it was decided
to place a lookout post there. Why this place was chosen is a mystery
to me. It is about 120 air miles from Los Alamos, about 90 from Sandia
Base and nearly 150 from Alamogordo/Holloman AFB. I have
listed above the sighting statistics for the various New Mexico areas,
being careful to list the sightings around Vaughn separately.
Note that Vaughn had only 1 sighting in the whole previous
year. So why did they waste a lookout post at Vaughn? Why
didnt they put one at Los Alamos or at White Sands? Did
they think that they could triangulate over a very large baseline
distance with the lookout post at Holloman AFB or were they
actually trying to avoid sightings? These are questions
which must forever remain unanswered.
Anyway, it was a mistake.
After Project Twinkle began the
sighting rate dropped precipitously. The Blue Book
sighting list shows 1 sighting in April, 1 in May and 1 in August in
the Holloman area. There were also fewer sightings in the
other areas. In fact, for
the period from April 1 to October 1 covered by the first Land
Air contract there were only about 8 sightings in the whole of New
Mexico as compared with the roughly 30 sightings during the previous 6
months.
The effect of this sudden decrease in
sighting rate is reflected
in the Twinkle Final Report which says that there were very few
observations. However, of more importance is what is not
reflected in the report.... what is ignored or covered up
in the report...the fact that Twinkle was successful. (For a
detailed paper on Project Twinkle by Bruce Maccabee see link below)
Sightings
in New Mexico during the flap of 1952:
January 16, 1952; Artesia, NM (BBU 1037)
A motionless dull-white, round object 5/3 larger than balloon.
February 17, 1952; Roswell, NM
Ball of blue fire approximately three feet in diameter seen by crew of
B-29 bomber. Ball passed about one mile ahead of the aircraft. (BBU
Sparks)
March
15, 1952; Sandia Base,
NM
4:30
PM (MST). For 15 minutes a dull aluminum object, shaped like a
flattened oval and
as large as a B-29 fuselage was observed by an Air Force officer.
Estimated speed was150-200 mph and the object was also stationary at
one point at 10,000 feet. (BBU Sparks)
April 13, 1952; Moriarty,
NM
4:45 PM (MST). Four USAF
airmen reported that they witnessed a silver disc-shaped object to the
East traveling very
erratically at high speed, then dove. (BBU Sparks)
April 24, 1952; Clovis, NM (Blue Book
Unknown #1151)
8:10 p.m. Witness:
USAF light
Surgeon Maj. E.L. Ellis. Many orange-amber lights, sometimes separate,
sometimes fused, behaved erratically. Speed varied from motionless to
very fast during 5 minute sighting.
April 30, 1952; Moriarty AFS, NM
7:40 and 7:46 a.m. (MST). CPS-5 radar tracking of 4,000 mph first
target at 230° azimuth (about SW) at 149 miles range moving 11
miles per 10-sec sweep for 4 sweeps heading into the radar site. 2nd
track at 7:46 a.m. of 4,000 mph target at 280° azimuth (about W) at
140 miles moving 11 miles per 10-sec sweep for 6 sweeps [toward the
radar] until disappearing at about 70 miles range. (BBU Sparks,
McDonald files; Jan Aldrich; FUFOR) 30-40 secs, then 60 seconds.
Two disc-shaped
objects seen SW of Kirtland AFB, and moved to the
NE. [3?] p.m. (MST). USAF Lt. Col. M. G. B. and wife in the yard of
their home saw 2 silvery disc-shaped objects one after the other moving
SW to NE at above 20,000 ft, first object seeming to waver on axis or
"flop over," 2nd object followed similar path but at higher altitude.
Officer alerted radar station but unable to track object(s). (BBU
Sparks, McDonald files; Jan Aldrich)
May 23, 1952; Kirtland AFB, NM
4:00-4:45 p.m. (MST). USAF CO of 135th AC&W Sq ADC radar
site,
Lt. Col. Orlando W. Stephenson Jr., and other staff of radar site,
Senior Director Lt. William J. Hopkins, Capt. Clarence R. Holloway, Lt.
Edwin G. Kenyon, Philco radar tech rep John B. Cooper, and at least one
other witness (door guard), saw a silvery or aluminum color flat on the
bottom, slightly rounded on top, the highest part off center to the
left, in the W at 268° azimuth 2° elevation at an estimated
height of about 1,000-3,000 ft at 10-20 miles 45 minutes distance, seen
through transit telescope, 7x 50mm binoculars and possibly theodolite
[?]. Object reflected sunlight at varying irregular intervals of
brightness for 3 secs to 2-3 mins and then dark or invisible for
similar periods, headed to the right descending below the horizon at
271° azimuth about 0° elevation. Radar and 93rd FI Sq F-86D
fighter interception unsuccessful. (BBU Sparks, Jan Aldrich)
May 24, 1952; Zuni, NM
1:27 a.m. Pilot of TWA airliner Brass saw 2 reddish torpedo-shaped
objects appear in front of the aircraft. (Sparks BBU, Project 1947;
FUFOR Index)
May 28, 1952; Albuquerque, NM (Blue
Book Unknown # 1233)
1:45-2:40 p.m. Witnesses:
two city fire department employees. Two circular objects--one shiny
silver and the other orange or light brown-- were seen three times
performing fast maneuvers.
(Berliner)
May 28, 1952; E of Albuquerque, NM
[and Okla. ?]. 8:10 [8:20? 8:40?] p.m. (MST). USAF crews of 5 B-29
bombers saw green spherical objects [fireballs?]. (Sparks BBU, Project
1947;
FUFOR Index)
June 5, 1952; Albuquerque, NM (Blue
Book Unknown #1256)
6:45 p.m. Witness: S/Sgt
T.H. Shorey. One shiny round object flew 5-6 times as fast as an F-86
jet fighter for 6 seconds. (
June 7, 1952; Albuquerque, NM (Blue
Book Unknown #1260)
11:18 a.m. Witnesses: crew
of B-25 bomber #8840 at 11,500'. One rectangular aluminum object, about
6'x4', flew 250-300' below the B-25.
June 8, 1952; Albuquerque, NM (Blue
Book Unknown #1263)
10:50 a.m. Witnesses: Mr.
and Mrs. J.D. Markland. Four shiny objects flew straight and level in a
diamond formation.
(Berliner)
June 16, 1952; Walker AFB, NM (Blue Book Unknown #1295)
8:30 p.m. Witness: USAF
maintenance specialist S/Sgt. Sparks. Five or six grayish discs, in a
half-moon formation, flew at 500-600 m.p.h. for l minute.
June 18, 1952; Placitas, NM
No data.
June 28, 1952. Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, NM
1:20 p.m. 2 observers with CARCO air service saw 2 silvery disc-like
objects high in the sky moving slowly to the S, noiseless, suddenly
climbed nearly vertically at high speed, one going SSE the other almost
due E. (BBU Sparks, Hynek UFO Exp ch. 6, case DD7)
July 22, 1952; Los Alamos, NM (Blue
Book Unknown #1538)
10:50 a.m. Witnesses:
control tower operator Don Weins, and two pilots for Carco. Eight
large, round, bright aluminum objects flew straight and level, then
darted around erratically during 25 minutes.
July 26, 1952; Kirtland AFB, NM (Blue Book Unknown #1637)
12:05 a.m. Witness:
Airman lst Class J.M. Donaldson. Eight to ten orange balls in a
triangular or V-formation flew very fast for 3-4 seconds.
July 29, 1952: Los Alamos, NM
10:00 PM. Several Los Alamos
scientific lab and other witnesses saw a white object moving E-W, about
1.8-degrees/sec angular velocity, with gyration or fluttering motion.
Two jet interceptors from Kirtland AFB arrived about 5 minutes later.
Chasing object W-E, all three leaving contrails. At 10:57 AM, light
brown egg-shaped object with wings was sighted hovering then shot off
to the NW disappearing in three seconds. The intelligence officer
stated that "the scientific experience of the weather personnel making
these
observations is sufficient to warrant credence in their sightings and
indicates an actual appearance of unidentified flying objects."
July 30, 1952; Albuquerque, NM (Blue Book Unknown #1755)
11:02 p.m. Witness: USAF
lst Lt. George Funk. One orange light remained stationary for 10
minutes. No further details in files.
July 30, 1952. Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, NM
(FUFOR Index)
August 3, 1952; Truth or
Consequences, NM
10:20 PM. Civil engineer Anderson saw three light-green cylindrical
objects hovering at a 45-degree angle in an inverted V-formation switch
in echelon when one object moved, with a rolling motion along its long
axis. Disappeared by rapidly rising vertically.(Sparks BBU, BB
Rpt
8; FUFOR Index)
The following incident documents will
have to wait until more rolls of microfilm are put up on the Blue Book
archive page, or we can purchase our own rolls from the NARA. We have
some rolls already. Right now they only go up to the end of June
1952.
Aug. 24, 1952. Bet. Hermanas, NM, and El Paso, TX (Blue Book Unknown
#1961)
10:15 [10:20?] a.m. Georgia Air National Guard F-84G jet fighter pilot
Col. G. W. Johnson saw two 6 ft silver balls in abreast formation, one
turned grey rapidly, the other slowly. One changed to long grey shape
during a turn. 10-minutes. (Berliner)
Aug. 25, 1952; Holloman AFB, NM (Blue Book Unknown #1979)
3:40 p.m. Witnesses:
civilian supervisor Fred Lee, foreman L.A. Aquilar. One round silver
object flew south, turned and flew north, made a 360 turn and flew away
vertically after 3-5 minutes.
Brad Sparks:
Edward Ruppelt's papers,and supplemented by details in his book,
state that 34th Air Division Commander Col. (William) Matheny
(misspelled by Ruppelt as "Methaney" or "Methany") put forward a
plan in mid-1952 to use specially equipped F-94C's to take gun
camera films of intercepted UFO's, which came to be called Project
Pounce. Many agencies were putting forth instrumented UFO
detection and tracking plans in 1952, and ATIC attempted to combine
them into one plan based in NM. New Mexico was the home of
Project Twinkle operated in 1950-1, and several other UFO observation
posts or networks, so there was already some experience and interest,
as well as plenty of UFO sightings there.
Here are some of Ruppelt's 1955 notes:
Col. Methaney [sic: Matheny] was
the CO of the 34th Air
Defense Division in Albuquerque. He is now a Brigadier General. He was
firmly convinced that the UFO's were real and that they were
interplanetary space ships. He wrote up a plan that called for a
special squadron of stripped down F-94C's to chase the UFO's. The plan
went through Western Air Defense Headquarters and to Air Defense
Command Headquarters but it was rejected because of the
non-availability of the aircraft. It was in the 34th that the F-86
pilot claimed that he shot at the UFO.
Summer of 1952; Albuquerque, NM
The famous F-86 UFO shooting incident
Sightings at Oak Ridge and Killeen Base, Texas.
Oct. 7, 1952; Alamagordo, NM (Blue Book Unknown #2150)
8:30 p.m. Witness: USAF Lt.
Bagnell. One pale blue oval, with its long axis vertical, flew straight
and level for 4-5 seconds, covering 30 in that time.
Oct. 17, 1952; Taos, NM (Blue Book Unknown #2171)
9:15 p.m. Witnesses: Four USAF
officers One round, bright blue light moved from north to northeast at
an elevation of 45-degrees for 2-3 seconds and then burned out.
Oct. 17, 1952; Tierra Amarilla, NM (Blue Book Unknown #2173)
11 p.m. Witness: one
military person (no detail). One white streamer moved at an estimated
3,000 m.p.h. in an arc for 20 seconds. No further details in files.
Nov. 12, 1952; Los Alamos, NM (Blue Book Unknown #2219)
10:23 p.m. Witness:
security inspector. Four red-white-green lights flew slowly over a
prohibited area for 15 minutes.
November 25, 1952; White Sands, NM
Not listed in the BB Unknowns or LaPaz list was this close
encounter. At approximately 2030 hours on 25 November 1952, the witness
observed
what appeared to be flares, or pyrotechnics, on the right side of the
road. His first thought was that these objects were flares that were
being fired by troops on a night project. However, shortly thereafter a
matter of seconds he observed what appeared to be a flare land right in
the middle of the road, about three or four hundred yards distant. It
assumed the shape of a ball, having a green center, fading to a light
hazy blue at the exterior. This light disappeared before his car
arrived
at the spot. Approximately three to five minutes
later he observed a light, or series of lights, approaching from the
right side of the road, in the heavens, at an altitude of about three
to five hundred feet and between 1/4 and 1/2 mile distant. This object
made a right hand turn above the road and
then disappeared at an angle of approximately 90 degrees straight into
the sky. The object had what appeared to be
windows, brilliantly lighted, and he estimated that they were five
to six feet in height and six to eight windows in each of the two rows.
Nov. 27, 1952; Albuquerque, NM (Blue Book Unknown #2249)
12:10 p.m. Witnesses:
pilot and crew chief of UAAF B-26 bomber. A series of black smoke
bursts (4-3-3-4-3), similar to antiaircraft fire, was seen over a 20
minute period.C. 12:30 a.m. Witnesses: radar
Dec. 28, 1952; Albuquerque, NM
11:09 [9:16?] p.m. Military pilot saw an elongated cigarlike
object the size of a medium bomber traveling E to W. (BBU Sparks, BB
Status Rpt; FUFOR Index)
1953:
January 26, 1953; City not stated, NM.
Radar case, G/V (UFOE)
January 31, 1953; Albuquerque, NM
9:00 PM. Cat. 8. Fifteen
minute observation of an unidentified, round, stationaryaerial object,
low on the western horizon. Witness advised he took a series of
photographs of this object and the file was sent to the pub;ishers of
"Life" magazine, New York City, undeveloped.
February 17, 1953; Los Alamos, NM
6:10 PM. Station 470 security inspector at Los Alamos had
been alerted by Protective Force Network to be on alert for
unidentified object, saw three, blue-white, stationary objects for 12
minutes.
February 18, 1953; Los Alamos, NM Cat
1, NCP
A round fiery object was seen east of Los Alamos at 1:27 AM for a half
a minute. The object was traveling too slow for a meteor, 100-150 mph.
March 27, 1953; Mt. Taylor, NM (Blue Book Unknown #2524)
7:25 p.m. Witness: pilot
of USAF F-86 jet fighter at 600 kts. (700 m.p.h.). One bright orange
circle flew at 800 kts. (900 m.p.h.), and executed three fast rolls.
Pilot chased object for 4 minutes.
August 24, 1953; Hermanas, NM. (UFO Encyclopedia)
Carl Sanderson, flying an F84 jet at
35,000 feet, sighted two
circular silvery UFOs, one of them making an extraordinary right turn
right in front of him. The objects disappeared at high speed, then
reappeared over El, Paso Texas.
Dec. 3, 1953. Holloman AFB, NM
(McDonald list)
1954
May 18, 1954. Cannon AFB, NM
7 p.m. 2 witnesses saw a house-size lens-shaped object land near
railroad tracks, kicking up a small sand storm in the desert. One
witness approached it, then ran away in fear. (Vallée Magonia
129; BB files??)
July 3, 1954; Albuquerque, NM
Radar case, G/V. (UFOE)
September 18, 1954; City not stated, NM.
Cat 3 (E-M). Large green fireball observed, radio and TV interference
noted over wide area. (Source: unknown)
1955
Jan, 1, 1955; Cochise, NM (Blue Book Unknown #3382)
6:44 a.m. Witnesses: instructor
and student pilot in USAF B-25 bomber/trainer. A metallic disc, shaped
like two pie pans face-to-face, and 120- 130' in diameter, paced the
B-25, showing both its edge and its face, for 5-7 minutes. Only item in
case file was summary form.
Feb. 1, 1955. 20 miles E of Cochise, NM (Blue Book Unknown #3414)
7:55 [6:55?] p.m. Instructor Capt. D. F. Ritzdorf and aviation
cadet F. W. Miller flying TB-25 bomber/trainer (s/n 44-86894) at 13,000
ft and ground speed 238 mph saw a very bright round object with red and
white hues approach then hover off the left wing of the TB-25 for 5
mins about 5° above horizontal. Object climbed rapidly on a
parallel flight track to disappearance in 3 mins. [See Jan. 1, 1955,
incident.] (Berliner; NARCAP)
June 6, 1955; City not stated, NM
Cat 3 (E-M). Three unusual green fireballs, heavy radio and TV
disturbance reported. (Source: unknown)
Nov. 14, 1955. Deming, NM
1 a.m. Commercial airline pilot in flight saw a fast moving object,
with a light on the rear, come from the SW. (Project 1947)
February 7, 1957; Las Cruces, NM
3:53 a.m. 1 hr 39 (MST). 54 radar targets? (Sparks BBU, McDonald list;
FUFOR Index)
Feb. 13, 1957. Tierra Amarilla AFS, NM
4:40 a.m. (MST). Meyer. (Sparks BBU, McDonald list; FUFOR Index) 2 hrs
March 27, 1957; Roswell, NM
8:35 p.m. USAF pilot Lt. Sontheimer flying C-45 transport saw to the
left 3 bright white circular objects in tight formation on collision
course. He immediately flashed his taxi lights, one object shot
straight up above him the other 2 continued on passing in front. When
he flashed his taxi lights (again?) the objects instantly blinked out
and disappeared. 6-seconds. (Sparks BBU, Weinstein; NARCAP; FUFOR
Index)
Nov. 3, 1957. White Sands, NM
3 a.m. [1 p.m. MST ?] Army patrol at Stallion Site in a jeep saw an
orange, "apparently controlled," luminous object on the ground near the
site of the first A bomb explosion [Trinity Site] first seen as a
sunlike source 150 ft above ground, descending to ground level after 3
mins, landing a few miles away at the N end of the test grounds.
(Sparks BBU, Vallée Magonia 420; FUFOR Index) 3 mins+
November 4, 1957; Orogrande, NM
James Stokes, an employee of Holloman AFB, was driving toward El Paso
when
car began to sputter and his radio to fade. He saw that several other
people had pulled their cars to the side of the road and were looking
at
something in the sky. Looking up, he saw a large, oval-shaped object
pass
over the coolection of onlookers and then disappear. Exposed parts of
his
body later turned red and itched as if sunburned. He made a report to
the
Air Force. None of the other witnesses was ever located.
November 4, 1957; Kirtland AFB, NM
10:45 p.m. (MST). CAA air traffic controllers R. M. Kaser and E.
G. Brink saw a highly maneuverable 15-20 ft egg-shaped object with a
white light at its base circle over the W [E?] end of the base at
150-200 mph and come down in a steep 30° dive as if landing on
Runway 26, to the N or NW of the tower at about 1500 ft. Radar tracked
part of this maneuver. Object then crossed flight line, runways and
taxiways heading towards the tower at about 50 mph and 20-30 ft above
ground, observed through 7x binoculars till it reached about 3,000 ft
to the ENE near the NE corner of the floodlit restricted nuclear
Weapons Storage Area / Area D/Drumhead Area, and a B-58 bomber service
site, where it hovered for 20 secs-1 min then headed E again, at about
200-300 ft height, then suddenly shot up at a steep climb at about
45,000 [4,500?] ft/min. Controllers contacted RAPCON which tracked
object on CPN-18 radar traveling E then turning S, circling the
Albuquerque Low Frequency Range Station then headed N [disappearing at
10 miles and reappearing 20 mins later to circle around ?] to follow
1/2 mile behind a USAF C-46 that had just taken off to the S for 14
miles until both went off scope. Hovering radar target then appeared to
the N over outer marker for 1-1/2 mins before fading. (McDonald 1968,
1972; Hynek UFO Exp ch. 7, case RV-3) 25 mins
November 5, 1957; Santa Fe, NM.
Two men saw an egg-shaped object coming toward them at low altitude. It
moved slowly, illuminating their car and producing a humming sound. The
car engine, the clock, and a wristwatch stopped. The object shot away
toward the southwest. (Magonia)
Nov. 6, 1957; Santa Fe, NM
12:10 a.m. J. Martinez and A. Gallegos saw an egg-shaped object slowly
coming toward them at low altitude, illuminating their car, producing a
humming sound. Car engine, clock and a wristwatch stopped. Object shot
away to the SW. (Sparks BBU, Vallée Magonia 425; BB files??)
Nov. 6, 1957; Radium Springs, NM (Blue Book Unknown #5227)
10:50 p.m. Las Cruces policeman [Barela?] and a Dona Ana County Deputy
Sheriff saw a round object changing from red to green to blue to white
rising vertically from a mountain top. (Berliner; FUFOR
Index) 10 mins
November 7, 1957; Orogrande, NM.
Cat 3 (E-M). Car traveling about 60 mph, speedometer waved wildly
between 60-110 mph. UFO then sighted. (UFOE)
November 9, 1957; White Oaks, NM
Cat 3 (E-M). Car lights failed as UFO observed. (UFOE)
Nov. 26, 1957; West Mesa AFS, NM
Radar case. (Sparks BBU, McDonald list; FUFOR Index
February 25, 1959; Hobbs, NM
Cat 3 (E-M). Signals on car radio (steady succession of two dots and a
dash) as UFO passed. (UFOE)
August 13, 1959; Bt. Roswell
and Corona, NM
Former USN PBY pilot, flying a Cessna 170 from Hobbs to Albuquerque,
N.M., at
8,000
feet, noticed halfway between Roswell and Corona, that his Magnesyn
electric
compass suddenly moved around a slow 360° rotation in about 4-5
secs,
and his other standard magnetic compass was spinning wildly.
About this time, he saw 3 small gray slightly fuzzy elliptical objects
in
close echelon formation passing in front from left to right and around
his
plane at a distance about 450 to 600 ft and a speed of about 200
mph.
Magnesyn compass followed the objects' position as they circled the
plane, and
after one full circle they disappeared to the rear, then both compasses
settled back to normal. CAA controller at Albuquerque canceled
his flight
plan and ordered him to land at Kirtland AFB, where he was interrogated
by a
USAF major.
December 23, 1959; W of Albuquerque, NM
(McDonald list)
1960
September 20, 1960; Farmington, NM
(McDonald List)
1961
Sept. 2, 1961; Albuquerque, NM
4:40-4:50 p.m. (MST). Ziegler saw reflection of sun from a shiny
surface moving erratically W to E from about 240° azimuth (about
WSW) to 210° when it stopped and emitted several smaller silvery
objects about 1/6 the size of the main object, then continued on to
about 150° azimuth (about SSE) where it again stopped and emitted
several silvery objects about 1/6 size then moved away and climbed to
about elevation 50° until disappearance by fading. (Project 1947;
McDonald list; FUFOR Index)
1962
May 24, 1962; Albuquerque, NM
(McDonald list)
1964
April 24, 1964; Socorro, NM (Blue Book
Unknown #8766)
1 mile SSW of Socorro, NM (landing site near
34° 233 N, 106°5352 W). 5:455:50? p.m. Socorro Police
Dept. patrol officer Lonnie Zamora, while chasing a speeder heading S,
heard a roaring sound and saw a bluish-orange funnel of flame in the
sky to the SW slowly descending possibly 1/2 to 1 mile away, bottom of
flame hidden behind a hill. He tried to pursue the flame, turning off
to the right on a rough gravel road to the SW, lost sight of flame
while trying to get car up steep rough hill. At the top after 10-15
secs of continuing along gravel road he suddenly noticed a shiny
whitish-aluminum color landed object about 12-15 ft tall about 800 ft
away to the SW down in a gully, at first looking like upturned car but
actually appearing oval long-axis vertical on two legs, and for about
these 2 secs also saw 2 small-adult-like figures in white coveralls
near object, one turning toward him seemingly startled and jumping. He
lost sight of object as he drove about 1,000 ft further WSW, radioed
headquarters he was investigating possible car accident, then stopped
at the top of the ridge about 103 ft from landing site down in the
gully to the SE. He got out, heard 2-3 loud thumping noises like a door
shut hard, walked 3 steps to the front of the car to
possibly 90 ft distance when he heard a very load roar increasing in
volume and saw a smokeless blue-orange
flame coming from beneath the oval object, now seeming long-axis
horizontal at this angle (about 120° from previous sighting), with
a
red insignia or lettering in the middle about 2 x 21/2 ft, and
slowly rising. He thought it was going to explode and ran away, putting
car between him and the object,
about 25 ft and 6 secs of running from the car he glanced back and saw
object had risen about 20-25 ft to
level of his car, ran another 25 ft
and "ducked down" below edge of ridge. Roaring noise stopped, he
looked up and saw object heading
to the SW (towards W end of Socorro Municipal Airport 1 mile away)
at level height just clearing 8 ft
dynamite shack by about 3 ft moving "very fast," no flame or smoke or
noise. He ran back to patrol car, radioed headquarters, saw object
climbing slowly and "get small" in the distance just clearing Box
Canyon or Sixmile Canyon Mtn. (about 6 miles to WSW). Immediate police
and military investigation found physical traces, burning brush.
(BBU 8766)
April 26, 1964; La Madera, NM
(BBU Sparks, McDonald List)
April 30, 1964; Stallion Test site, NM
B-57 radios, white object landed, photo recon (Source: unknown)
May 15, 1964; Stallion Test Site, NM
Cat 9 (Radar/visual), two scrambles, UFOs sent proper IFF.
May 22, 1964; White Sands, NM
Cat 9 (Radar/visual). Auto radar tracks UFO on tape, sends phony IFF.
1965
April 18, 1965; Bernacillo, NM
Cat 8 (photo). No details (Source: unknown)
September 25, 1965; Rodeo, NM (Blue Book Unknown 39971)
10 p.m. Witnesses: Dr. George Walton, physical chemist, and wife. Two
round white objects flew side-by-side, at 30-50' altitude, pacing the
witnesses' car for 6 minutes.
Note: December 2, 1965; parts of Texas, NM and Mexico were suddenly
hit by a power failure. Blacked out were Fort Bliss, Holloman AFB,
White Sands Proving Ground and Biggs AFB. (Ref. 3, 219) This
blackout was preceded by the famous incident on November 10th where a
massive power failure hit the northeastern United States.
1967
Jan. 13, 1967; SW NM
NW of El Paso, Tex., to Flagstaff-Winslow, Ariz. 10 p.m. Pilot Carl M.,
an FO, and a passenger Jimmie Moran on a Lear Jet 23 en route from
Houston, Tex., to Las Vegas, Nev., at 41,000 ft and 300 knots airspeed
(Mach 0.82 or about 540 mph TAS) on a 300° heading saw a flashing
[?] red oval luminous object in the 10 o'clock position. Object split
into 4 similar red oval objects vertically a number of times, each
separated by about 2,000 ft and each emitting a "red ray," then
retracting the lowest objects up into the top object. Albuquerque radar
tracked the object 39 miles ahead of the Lear jet moving on the same
heading, with no transponder signal and at that moment the object
blinked off visually for 30 secs then blinked on. Albuquerque control
contacted a National Airlines DC-8 over Casa Grande, Ariz., whose pilot
confirmed the Lear pilot's reports. Albuquerque control warned the Lear
that the object suddenly darted towards the Lear at high speed within
secs until the radar blips merged [possibly 39 miles in 10 secs or
roughly 14,000 mph]. Object flooded the Lear with intense red light so
bright the pilot had difficulty seeing his instrument panel, and it
maintained position in front of the Lear for a few mins then, then
blinked out then came on again and started falling back behind the left
wing, then pulled forward again. (When the object blinked off radar at
Albuquerque controllers would lose the object then regain it when it
blinked on again (?).) Both UFO and Lear jet made left turns over
Winslow, Ariz., then Los Angeles Center radar picked up both targets.
Past Flagstaff the object climbed at a 30° angle disappearing to
the W in <10 secs. (BBU Sparks, Hynek UFO Exp ch. 7, case RV-1;
NARCAP)
March 2, 1967; Alamogordo, NM
This series of visual sightings of silver specks in the
sky triggered a scramble of two aircraft from Holloman AFB. Two range
surveillance radars (one at Holloman, the other at Elephant Mountain
near Orogrande, 35 miles south of Holloman) plotted four targets 10
Nautical miles ENE of Tularosa. Then a plot of three targets were
reported over Mescalero by both radars. Although intermittent the radar
operators were convinced that "something" was there.
March 24, 1967; Los Alamos, NM
Disc hovers for 10 minutes. (Source: unknown).
May 26, 1967; Albuquerque, NM
Cat 3 (E-M). Luminous object chased car, hovered above it, able to
restart engine after UFO sped away. (APRO).
1975
August 13, 1975; Alamogordo, NM
Sgt. Charles L. Moody abduction case.
1980
August 8, 1980; Kirtland AFB, NM
Multiple sightings over Manzano Weapons Storage Area and Sandia
National Laboratories test site, Coyote Canyon.
August 9, 1980; Kirtland AFB, NM
Cat 3 (E-M). On this morning, several security guards at the
Manzano Weapons Storage Area, adjacent to Kirtland AFB, saw a bright
light descend in (a) restricted area. A fourth guard observed a disk
shaped light in the vicinity of a bunker used to store nuclear weapons.
The incident resulted in a report being filed with the Air Force Office
of Special Investigations (AFOSI) at Kirtland. The incident was
subsequently investigated by agent Richard Doty -- an interesting and
mysterious figure who often appears in the UFO literature. Doty filed a
preliminary report on the incident, which has been acknowledged and
released by the Air Force. Maccabee's question is, where is the
follow-up report? Surely, no such incident at an atomic facility, even
if explainable by mundane causes, would not have been further
investigated. Maccabee reveals strong circumstantial evidence that such
a report exists but is being withheld by the Air Force.
END OF REPORT