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This declassified document is a March 22, 1949 letter from the Security Operations Branch of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's Santa Fe Directed Operations. It forwards a transcript of a Conference on Aerial Phenomena held at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory on February 16, 1949. At the conference, Dr. LaPaz described the green fireballs, including his own Starvation Peak sighting of December 12, 1948, and argued that they were not conventional meteors. Dr. Teller and others discussed why the fireballs made no sound, and no conclusion was reached.
Po.ge 16Conference on AERIAL PEENO
Co dr. :.:mdelkorn: Id 11 to remove that temporary sta .. t e.oo t the
Armed Foreca Speci l eaponn Proj ct; ire srcn•t lo.ughing •••• (record blank
for minute or tYO) •
Dr. Bradbury: Rone of ua ~ expe;rts in this field, 110 ,re e oentially he.ve
to believe what ve ere told. I CJUiPPOOe if you try to look for logl.co.l
CY.pl.alIDtions, there ore probably e.
Dr. LaPa.z: I w-ould like to ask. one queetion here - unleea you feed pover into
body O'\i ng into a horizontal po.th, can it preserve eseentialJ.y a horizontal.
tr jectory? A pls.ne doeo it; ttet oriteo don't do it; show curves na the
cnerBY f'olle OJ.f. This thing apparently ignores air resistance and gravity
d goev bll &f'ulll on its '78.Y'····•·· ••••••
Dr. Teller: s far s stmightnees of the path io concerned, if' you have a
netcorite thnt you have obs rved for 10 occondo, and 1n theo 10 seconds 1t
ha gone e.diatence of 100 miles, it will have :fallen in th1 distance 1/3 of
a mile cn:l now I ould 11 to dtlre any observer to tell a CUI"V3.ture ot thin
kind - beco.uoe you are completely UIIprepared tor th ph~n.
Dr. LaP z: a it love down, it curvaa toward the bottom.
Dr. Teller: But appsrently before it ha.a happened, olOl.-ed doun too much or
c ploded or o::ething, HZJd then it hao disni,p2&1"0d- Eov th" •••• point is,
of cource, i:P 1t has no po er 1t m.ll sl0l1 clovn, but I do not lmov hOlr quicltly
vou .ould have to stimate th.et; furthermore., the rate at 'tlhich it slows down
vi.11 depend very much on the question wether it lw.o been st a 10 mile Bltitud~
or a. ,l() mile altitude.
Dr. LePaz• Th elevation tm.atea arc very concordant on these, nru1 I doubt
t ~-ou vill be eble to change that el.ev tion of 8 to 10 milco by ry much.
'l'hcac ere the real. p th obaerve.tiono that I have nentioned..
Dr. ller: Well, can you y.......do you think ~hing e&1 be mud about
t?
Dr. Le.Paz: I doubt it. Th eye, of cou.roe, ia not a sood. opeedameter. You
cnn t det ct a chrulge. At 1 st, I did not 1n the one observation that I e,
8ll.d no Gu.ch clmnge has been reported. ln the case of those \1ho observed the
green f'ireballa, o y that neor the end o~· the Texna tirebsl.l po.th of January 30
1t w.s noted that the f'reoients moved out leiaurely to the point t which there
pp{\l'e?ltly l.cs velocity, a.u eh.ow by them on the green fireball it£el.f.
y I mention, hmrever, thc.t 1n the case of the normal I:1eteorite foll that
curvature in the path, the traru;ver e verticol., ia one of the aoet ai,pm-ent.
You ace that 1n the ceoe of~ larBe, ordinary detonation fireball tall even
though it y not produce . . . . . there 1e e. tendency to curve.
Dr. Teller· What !1:bout total l1gbt.... Hov doe!) the brishtne c C0:lip8.l"'e to the
br ghtn aa of the meteoritea that co tro:n a moteort Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 25 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.