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.
“Mission Control”1 page
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# ALBUQUERQUE Institute of Meteoritics February 21, 1949 TO: Lt Colonel Doyle Rees, Commanding Officer District No.17 Office of Special Investigations From: Lincoln LaPaz, Director Institute of Meteoritics Subject: Anomalous luminous phenomena (4th report) 1. Several additional sightings of unexplained aerial light phenomena have occurred since the third report in this series was prepared. Outstanding among the as yet undescribed incidents was the green fireball of Sunday evening January 30, 1949, 5:54 p.m. MST. Within less than one minute after the appearance of the fireball, an eyewitness (Mr. Nesbett) called to report the pression of a group of persons who saw the fireball through an east window while seated about the dinner table in a brightly lighted room. Within twelve hours after the fireball appeared, more than 100 eyewitness accounts had been obtained by its director through personal interviews. An unusually high percentage of the reports came from military personnel (waiting out under the s for Post Theaters to open), from guards and other special agents already able to watch for anomalous luminous phenomena and from airplane pilots, control tower men and oilwell workers working on the late afternoon to midnight shift 2. On February 1st, a staff car was placed at the writer's disposal by Major William Godsoe of the Fourth Army and a field survey was begun of the region in New Mexico and Texas in which the majority of the observer's reporting the fall lived. This survey, carried out under unusually severe weather conditions, included visits to the following localities: Moriarty, Estancia, Vaughn, Ramon, Mesa, Roswell, Caprock, Tatum and other towns in New Mexico; and Lamesa, Brownfield, Plains, Lubbock, Muleshoe and other towns in Texas. (Several of these towns were visited two or more times.) At Roswell, where very effective cooperation was provided by the OSI group at Walker Air Base under Lt Paul Ryan, and the local CAP unit under Lt H. K. Cobean, Special Agent Bill Ricket was added to the survey party and gave much aid in later work. At Lamesa, Texas, the ground survey party was joined by an air search party consisting of Major Charles Phillips, USAF, Captain Melvin E. Neef and Special Agent Jack L. Boling, from the 17th District OSI office at Kirtland Field, and Corporal Cochran. On February 4th, the four persons just named flow a low-level air reconnaissance mission in a T-11 aircraft over the area surrounding the earth-point of the fireball of January 30th. At the same time a second ground survey party under Lt Paul Ryan made a careful field search along a route extending from Lamesa through Amherst, Texas, to Clovis. New L
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.