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This file is a US Atomic Energy Commission transcript of a secret conference on aerial phenomena held at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory on 16 February 1949. A cover letter from the AEC Santa Fe office dated 22 March 1949 accompanies it. Dr. Lincoln LaPaz describes the New Mexico green fireballs, including the Starvation Peak sighting of 12 December 1948 and the 30 January 1949 fall over Texas. He argues they were not conventional meteorites. Edward Teller, Norris Bradbury and others discuss the missing sound and the long horizontal paths but reach no conclusion.
Conference on AERIAL PBENOMENA Page 20 Dr. La.Po.z: It should be possible ..... The cO?tVentiona.l meteor cannot be :photogr :phed. e.t t.he pre~ent time. The so-called met.eorecbmitts that Harvard College .ts nou having produced at verJ great expense, they expect to go down to the 4th and poaeib~ fa.inter. l1ith one of those, a bright green :fii-eball might be photographed, but they are not o.vaile.ble•.••.. Ml!. Devburger: Does a.nybody knov if ·chere were any experiments ce.rried out in Europe, prior to th',! w.r when our la.st beat information CGme tram over there, al.pug this line? Dr. La.Paz: Not tom::, knovledge. I raised that question with Dr. Kapl.e.n and he gave me 8Qme? :rather arurprising information. DJ:. Kaplan had atteDded. the IAU meetings in Syria ? and the Russians had a large repres tation there. Sm:"ficiently large, as a matter ot :te.ct, to beat dam the proposal that the IAU appoint an international camnittee to investigate the so...called ••.•• meteorite crater procluced in the fall ot 1947, 1"ebrua.ry 12. On the contrary, at ·the Oswsl.d, I think it w.o, conference ot the International Geophysical Union, none of the Russian geoph;teie1sts vere present. Kaplan'a interpreta tion was that they feel ao far ahead ot us that they d1cm•t t.bink they oould 1 am anything, and they were taking the precaution that no leak occurred.. • Mr. Nwburger: Were the GemaM ex,periment11l8 1n UN phase tbat vas poaa1bcy cozmected with it? Dr. LePaz: "I-ell, t'lle'.Y had the ao•ce.J..J.ed otation.e in apace ••••• might have some attachment to it. Comdr. Mandelkorn: You don't he.ve any record of ~nma.nts. Dr. LaFa.a: Bo, no Jmowl~ of exporimenta•••••• I have the belief tllat no country in t world has thqre b~cn meteoritics developed a~ it has in Ruoeia in .,"eee:L"t years. Recently, -the AcRdeny of Science of' the USRR has bf:en issuing a so-called met~ritic, an eztraQ?!'d1nery publication - very little work of the ca.liber being ~ ~ the Russians he.& been conducted in the United States. Apparen·cly, there 1 t has big liN,P.POrt; hen, 1t is c.n 1ndiv:td\181 matter. UntU we had some milltcry interest in meteori~ictJ, ve vere DeVer able to :round even an institute ill moteor1t1cs in the unite'1. States. The one 1n New Moxico is an out51"mrth of application of meteoritics to determine, sq. ballistic eoetticients ror shells ot unconventional .design like the p1'0Z1m1ty tuze shell w1tb the radio 1n its nose, 811d that sort ot thing.' 'l'hat 0 s vb.ere wie got a s~. Apparentl.7., "he Ruasians got that ~ller and have f'ull..fledged st&~ eupport. Dr~ BoUO'U'&y: Bov much interest would the mil:l.tary have if tbey found out these 1ili,nge vere lancU.ng all over ~ country, Cerllda., Bava11., ~tc.? ..... Have you contact6d peopl.e in the East1 Dr. La.Paz: Olivia, C. C. Olivio., President of the Amerie&11 Meteor Society, Ki~, Leone.rd, Pruitt, Xapl.an, tc. MQet o£ them have been obsem.ns; Kaplan, I 1.!uagi.ne, bas not, 'because h~ is JJOW preocc'1,Pied vi.th labo.ra.tory . .
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