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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.
,, ' Conference on AERIAL PHENOMENA Page 2 earth, ts as you would elt!)ect, one at rend.ool - in azimuth and elevation. I.f the rad.laat t7hite is knovn., yor: can preciict the minimum angle with respect to the plane of the horizon nt which the m.eteoi-i•ce path has been observed. There is no choice, e.s f'a.r as the ..... for direction wen rceteorites fe.11 in at ranc1om. I'd like to contrast 11o·n-, at this time, thia fact with what has been observed by some indivi.duals here at the co.:?lf'erence and by r.::aey of the AESS inspectorll, UAL pilota, special a.gents, goodness knows how many other categories of people. I choose to describe ·Ghe only one of the incidents that I vas pereonally o. wi:~nesa to. It io the only one of the incidents that I am in a nooiticn to vouch fo~ on the basis of experience, dating from 1915, as a member of the Am~rican !>1etaor Society; w-as most certainly not a. conventioll81 meteorite fall. It -was the so-called St:U.--vation Peak incident on the night of December 1.2, 19116. 'l'iue of observation around 9;02 P.M., plus or minus 30 seconds. This rir0·oa11 nppeared in full intenoity instantly • there was no increase in light. Its color,, estimated to be somewhere arotmd wave length 5200 engstroma, .ms a. hue green, or yello-11 green, such ae I had never observed in meteor falls before. The path ua.e a& I!.etlrly horizontal as one could determine by visual observation. We have ~ pho·togra:1>h which might be some li--;; ra ot departure from horizontal.. The trajectory was traverse at, I am inclined to believe, constant angular velocity. Just befor0 the end of the pat;h ·there we.a the very 811gb.test drooping of the path, that io the green fireball broke into fragments, still bright green. Dr. Teller: And all this time the intensity uas approxiJDately constant? Dr. !.a.Paz:: All -the time, as fa'.!." ae I cou.ld determine. The eye, of course, is e.dmitted.l.~r a very crude phcrcographer. Dr. Teller: Rov long did the phenomenon last1 Dr. 1-.'i.Paz~ Almost exactly two i:;econds. We have in the reports here, I brought the com:plt::te file nth ma and uould be glad. to circulate them, duration measures in 1•ela.tion. to all observations. Fev of -these, h~rever, I believe, were deter.Jlinoo under as favorable circumstancea as the duration of the Starvation Peak incident. Possibly I should go back and review the situation a little bit. Because oom~ report, iaau.ed by the AESS, uoul.d certain]Jr suggest that I was prinillrily responsible for starting this whole matter I am glad that Captain Reel' corrected that impression. Actually:- I YaS on an investigation in regard to -'che green fireball. observed on tho night of December 5th at the time the Dece111ber 12th incident occurretl. As a :result I was keyed up; I was 'WBtehing; I h'.1.cl a stop vatch with me and a transit. We got into position and made measures, transit :ciee,suros, on azimuths and elevation readings; that is, we ma.de a dm.·a:cion check, certainly within not more than tvo or three minutes sftor the incident occurred. To that extent, I believe, it is posaibly' the best observed ot any incident up to tha time of the January 30th fall. Dr. Manl~r: Hem did you have time to use ·t;b.e tranait? Dr. La.Po.~: The transit was in the back of ·the car. The mament the car was parked a:c the aide of th2 road, we yanked. the transit out and set 1t u,p and
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