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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.
“Independence Day”1 page
•Conference on AERIAL PBEI.JOMEHA Page 5 discovered until m,.ch 1e;~er tha-c ve uere getting faulty z-ecords. Independently, I b£.ve re~deten:.ined, using the best equip:nent available at tho University, the lines of sight a.t all po:~ta where the faulty t.rans1t had been used. I have plotted on this map only obser. at:l.on.s that I made pG>.-son.9.l.ly or such obuerva tions as I have c-,1cry reason to believe ,,rere Jnade by experienced personnel, for exam.ple UAL flyers, who took tll~ trouble to make measures, or possib~ civil engj.neel'G. Dr. Teller: You mean theae people right afterwards or shortly a.f'term,.rds took an i11st1'Ull:en:c e.tit. tried ·:;o meavure it? Dr. u.Pa.z: '.!..'hat a right. Dr. Teller: Thie is the po:Lnt where 1t disappeared? Dr. LaPa.z: And r.01-me.J.l..y', all you td.ll get is the point where it disappears, becauae t.te ave1•£1gc man is ali'ar~ ot the fa.ct that when he ii, not w.rned, he mak~s e. very im.t:curate observation. Having been uai-ned by- the appearance 0: the fireball, hio attent:J.on is fixed and he wtches where it bursts, where it explodes, where :it disappears. So I say thia is a much better det.o:m:Snaticm.. This begirning point, al-though you notice the .•.. of line here, is reasonably sa.tisfactcry. Dr. Te.lle1·: Are these points here observers of the teat, locations of those obs~rvatic:118? • Dr. LaPaz: Usua.Uy e. dotted c::rcle like tb&t illd1ca.tes a. reported sound obSe't'"• vation. f'e use this symbol: n c11·cle is a report, whether or not the observation includ.es azimuth o:? elevation, light appearances, is indicated ,,....,,. the preser.ce of a. cross. U i"G is blacked out, both light and aound vere heard. nu, ever;/ one o~ those thiI!go baa been disproved. In the area vb.ere the end poin.t w.u located, oil well drilling was underuay, dynamite blasting in connection 'f7ith ae'c·ting up of i-igs, same nitro beill,g used apparently to ehe:tter . . . . . In ave17 case ,re .rere able to e%Cl.ude the posaibil.1ty that the noioea :reported 00-tu.s..Uy 't1ere ·ded 1n vith the meteorite fal1. At least let me say, 1It my op:;.n:Lon, those noisee vere excluded. In certain cases, 1nde:pe.ndet:.tly, ths.:~ ws conf'ir~ed by a visit of Lt. Rym:l. of the Roswell group of -the om:. For instance, the best case of all, near Amherst ? , or noise - the obeer\-er, it ea true, was only a ten-year old boy, but be wrote a very intelligent letwr, and 1t is 1:-ell lmO"W tbat children, like en1maJ e, are more seru:;itive to sound than people v.bo have listened for too many years, say, to the xa.dio. It appeared eonceiva.blo that he had actually made a soUDd observa tion, but Lt. Ryan uent to Amhent ?, found that even three members of the family "i!ere not able to confirm his observation of noise cmd. no oue 1n the town, aome 300 o:r 4oo persons I think in all vere eetimated to have been visited, l'.O one o.t all had hem,! a sound, so I think that Mike probably hen.rd the samll! c~tc blaat as had been reported by Miss Winoon Didpasture .. I diful't tal.e that name out of the tunny papers, it actually exists. ( continual e~nation of the maps mth minor interrogations concern1.Dg markings.)
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