Documents / Report
This Black Vault copy of Air Force records centers on the Project Twinkle Final Report, which Louis Elterman of the Geophysics Research Division wrote on 27 November 1951. Project Twinkle investigated green fireballs and other light phenomena in New Mexico using Askania cameras run by Land-Air at Vaughn and Holloman AFB. Elterman found the results essentially negative, with most sightings put down to aircraft, balloons, birds, clouds and meteors. He recommended no further spending. The file also includes the 1949 and 1950 correspondence that set up the project and 1952 memos about declassifying it.
• • • • • UNCLASSIFIE • a er ial phenomena in the vicinity of Hollooon since Sontember 1950 . The noDulace around HAFB seem to have lost their sensitivity as ob- servers . Lven durinr; the meteor sho\ver of 11- 12 August 1951 , no alarming renor ts \.Jere received . However , on 14 !larch 1951, nine Bell per sonne l r eportea si[!hting between fourteen and t\·Tenty bodies ·not unli ke a flock of geese 1 • On 9 July a ''red glo\·ring ball u '"as sighted by a s er geant stationed at the Cor ona ~~oerinental Radar Site a t Corona , Ne'\oT Hexico . (vopi es of both r eoorts are attached) • • l·fur e recently , a nilot reported some aerial objects which, after investieation , were identified as nlanets . Hr • .&J . l.-uildenberg, who is an assistant to 1.Llljor L.Oty and an active amateur astronolllcr , comnented that he has been 511ending sev- eral hours at his telescope alnost ~u ., r • ry night for the past fe\·1 years and never once observed an unexolainable object; that on.. one occasion, an excited acquaintance 'o~as nacified uhen a 1 strange objec t showed uo as ru1 eagle in the telescope ; that Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the nlanet t.Luto and now engaced in activities at \·Jhi te Sands , never observed an 1mexolainable aerial object despite his contfnuous and e.."Ctensive observations of the sky; that Fred \!hioole in his '\orork photograohing meteors at Las Cruces, never de- tec ted a strange aerial object ui th his "'chmidt caueras; and that the A and 11 Col lege at Las Cruces engages j.n astronomical observa- tions but had never observed strange aerial phenomena. 6 UNCLASSIFIED
Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 34 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.