Documents / Report

Project Twinkle Final Report, November 1951

Internet Archive (uploaded by Paul Galante) · 1951-11-27 · 34 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

•
•
•
•
lJNCLASSIFlED
•
It \.Jas learned from Uajor voty , that Col . Da.ynes , C. 0 . at
HAFB , no lonp:er felt there vias any j ustification for the allocation
of funds for maintaininr; systematic investie;ation . Rather, he pr ovided
that the nro jec t be maintained on a standby basis and Hithout official
Air Force status . lhis entails assignment of an officer (:f\1ajor voty)
to collec t incoming repor t s , make periodic r evi ew of the file s · for
patterns or per s istent characteristics in the r epor t s , maintain
liaison with OSI, .t?rovost l'.arshall 1 s Office and any other agencies
whose a ctivities may serve to provide information concerning future
aer ial nheno:mena dev elon; 1ents . Lund-Air ht:~.s agreed to reoort and
if oossible photograph any abnoroal sightings made dur ine their scheduled
periods of ooeration (about eight hour s each. ' 8Jy) • The \leather station~
• w..
....
Hill function similarly . Also , all JJ. .... 1.ot s have been briefed to re""fort
•
any unusual observations . If ncct,.;.i.:)aary, the nr ojcct can be activated
very quickly , even to the extent where funds \~ 11 be made available ,
for the purchase of equipment •
•
Lajor Doty also arranged a conference \d th L.:r . larren Kott, who
•
is in char ge of Land- Air operations . Hr . l ott oointed out that a forrlal
report c overi~g the year 1 s vigilance period had not been issued since
•
the contract contained no such provisi on . Actually, a time correlation
study should be made covering the fiLra and verbal recordings at both
Askania stations . Thi s would a s sure that theae r ecords did not contain
significant material . ~ov1ever, such a study i s quite laborious , and
\Jould require about thirty man days to comolete . Ag~i n, no r.>r ov i sions
are contained in the contra c t for this study , but Lr . Kott felt that
DOWNGRADED AT 3 YEAR INTERVALS•
DECLASSIFIED AFTER 12 YEARS •
DOD DIB 6200.10 .
UNCLASSlflE

About this file

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.