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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.
•Con:rerence on AERIAL PIDmO:mNA. Page 6 Dr. Le.Paz: W!th 0&"1e exception, in the ca.a,.., of' Roswell, there e.re two types of cound aasoci&ted 11ith meteorite fu.lls end, I acsume, associated vi.th the motion of any very high velocity projectile or missile through tbe air. T°J'.lere sre vb.at ~rc1c1ats wuld cul reczoneble oounda, end while he would not acknm,lede;e i J.;, s1multaneouoly with ~.;he c.ppaarcnce or a meteor1te, you hear c. meteorite, yhc physicist ,;rill refuse to believe the observation. revert.Jwleas, there i.a a tremendous volume of evidenc indicating that these m~maloU3 sc'\lllds oc:cu:..-red. Anyone who cioes field work 1n the search for zaeteo:rites 'tr.Lil c0:.1e acroso possibly 'JUI, oi' the observers who say that, although my a"i.tention ~ attracted by hn-..ari.Il8, a miining noise, e vhistling noioc: I looked up and ·Ghere ,mo the fir~bal.l. In o:ther words, this ana:nalnus 1?:ound a.ppe.rently attracts attention to the occurrence. I bnve an article by Brandon . . • . . one of ·Ghe flO!I.S of the man w~ first investigated the great creter out :,.n Ar1Zon3, and. s chap by the name or Bart ? vith 1r"ho:n I am not perao:aally ccgy.z.dnted but a :p~~icist ap_parontly at Princeton, 1n which they etteJeyt ·w ~ uotify t.b.e occurrence of ano:m.1.ous sound. They express 1 t roughly in th:f.a fe:aion. Elcctro.I!t3gnctic radiation is net up by (Dr. Teller excused. to anawer the phone.) Dr. L3.Pllz: You wouldn't believe it anylray! Ho~r, •.••• electromagii.etic ra.d.iction iu rectified somehow by the . • . • . changed into sound tbat can be heard and, •aieref'ore, you cu. he:u- the reetcorite at the seme time you ece it fell. In the case of the Roswell observation apparently that occurred. t::e have e;ro,.ql of five men • there uerc nea.r a. stee1 '1!ll0kestack • ond tSVfi1rY le.ct one of them m;e1.""'0 that they heard at the same time they were va.tchillS the green f:.reball eo by, c. noise like, se.y., o eaeoline blOV"torch. 'lb:lt ie ccrtoinly not an ordinary explosives cound. One :core thing in connection m:'Gb the noirnea. In every other :meteorite f'all, any one meteorite :tall that I ho.vc inventigated, - that cove1·0 ms.ey yea.rs .. I have ver yet found sn occasion of n detonating fireball., vithout meteorites caning dovn at all, :!.:!'l '!rh.ich ·chore vao not sam.e evidence of ala..""l!l of an1rnal s. Chickmls will fly e:-oun.il to tcy to uet under cover. DogG vill howl o.nd try to get into the houGe. liorsea vill run o.vay. In the ca6~ of the TCJm.s fall., in epite or the tranend.oun a.reg:. in llbich the llght 1,-as obcerved., we found not a a1ngl.e caoe in which ·c.ho w1rool6 vere disturbed. We lm2w;,t the cdtie of a farmer who hwl, in mmny Te.me, a pond vi.the f'ive-inch layer of ice, tmo reported that e. ~~teorite had foll.en through the ice on tbat pond, had broken a hole. Captain Neef here pu-'c on o. pair of rubber booto l.1lld very thoroushly searched the pom wi-'Gho it finding n meteorite. Even 1u that oaoo there vae no evidence of alarm by ~h~ e.n1nm,Jo. I bel.ievc vith tlmt aummary, I'd better cease operations and have yo1 o.sk quetrl;icma. Q-u.estion: llou ?mny obnerved fall.6? Dr. L9.Paz: I'd like to clasaify thooo into three groups. I ·would 88-,Y that there ere ten instances that definitely merit the moat eerioue conaidere.tion. They are strictly e.mlogous to the green fireballs of the night of December 12. On top of that, there muat be sauething of the order of tmmtymore which ere
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