Documents / Report
This U.S. Department of War release compiles 1949 records tied to Sandia Base, New Mexico. It includes a Sandia Base security inspection reply and a W. D. Crozier letter to Lincoln LaPaz. It also contains Crozier and Seely's report on collecting airborne copper particles after the July 24, 1949 fireball near Socorro, which they judged negative or inconclusive. LaPaz's sixth report on green fireballs disputes parts of that finding, and a Fourth Army report describes unusual lights around the Q Area at Camp Hood, Texas, in March 1949.
From the source:Release of 2026-05-22 Incident: 1948-1950, New Mexico. This file contains 116 pages of documentation from the Armed Forces Special Weapons Program (AFSWP) – the direct, post-World War II successor to the Manhattan Project – and from the U.S. Air Force – relating to a series of sightings and investigations in Sandia, New Mexico, from 1948-1950. This file contains 209 sightings of “green orbs,” “discs,” and “fireballs” reported near the military base. Witnesses reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) maneuvering, flying out of sight, disappearing, or exploding. The documents also include the results of contemporary investigations into residual copper powder found in some areas where sightings were reported. A few of these investigations became the basis for Project Grudge, which collected reports of unidentified flying objects from various other military installations – also included in this collection.
“Socorro, New Mexico”4 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
10 August 1949 Dr. Lincoln LePaz Institute of Meteoritics University of New Mexico Albuquerque, N. M. Dear Lincoln: I am inclosing two copies of the report you asked for, and hope that they serve their purpose. We have made a preliminary examination of the eighteen collections taken at nine locations on my Monday-Tuesday trip. There was a large number of copper-bearing particles on one collection (R-104L) taken on Highway 84, seventeen miles north of Highway 66, and scattered occasional particles throughout the series. The collection taken at the same location immediately following R-104L shows practically no copper. A large part of the R-104L is of a granular material unfamiliar to us, and the copper indications originate principally in what are apparently aggregations of finely (one-micron) granular material of overall sizes in the neighborhood of thirty microns. Some copper particles, however, appear to be solid and opaque. The passage of two automobiles while this collection was being made is a complicating factor. It is hard to see how they might have been a source of copper, however, unless it was a question of stirring up some from dust on the pavement. We intend to do some further chemical work with these collections, but I doubt if much new relevant information will be obtained. My tentative conclusion is that no widespread significant dispersion of copper-bearing particles was present in the atmosphere in the region covered at the time the collections were made. No definite statement is possible about the one heavy copper collection: it should be presumed to be of local origin until some evidence to the contrary is found. The route of the collecting trip included Pastura, Santa Rosa, junction of Routes 66 and 84, and Las Vegas on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday morning it included Las Vegas, Canoncito, Glorieta and Pecos. Yours very truly, W.D. Crozier WDC*TW attachments (2)
Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 116 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.