Green Fireball Chronology By Joel Carpenter

1946-February 1949 Note: This material is drawn primarily from personal memoranda and correspondence of Dr Lincoln LaPaz, a New Mexico-based meteor expert and mathematician. The documents are preserved in LaPaz's personal papers as well as the files of the Air Force, DOE and FBI. LaPaz had been involved with tracking the Japanese Fu-Go bomber-balloons during WWII in addition to other wartime work with military applications of ballistics (the Proximity Fuze program, for example). In early 1948 he was approached by Project SIGN to act as scientific consultant to the UFO program, but declined due to his teaching duties, suggesting instead his Proximity Fuze project colleague Dr J Allen Hynek of Ohio State University. LaPaz's notes make it clear that he came to believe early on that the strange luminous phenomena being reported in New Mexico from late 1948 were Soviet missile experiments of some type - or at the very least, highly classified domestic secret weapons tests. But surprisingly, his papers reveal that as early as 1947 he was already intent on this theory, even racing to recover the famous Norton County, Kansas meteorite because he suspected that it might be a manmade object coming from the USSR.

Spring 1946 California Institute of Technology astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, (who also works for Theodore von Kármán's Aerojet company as director of research), proposes installation of shaped-charge explosives in rockets for hypersonic research. Zwicky points out that these weapons can accelerate particles to speeds of 8 km/sec or more -- orbital speeds or above -- and when launched to extreme altitudes on a large rocket, they may be usable as a tool to simulate meteor dynamics in the upper atmosphere. December 1946 Zwicky secures cooperation of Army Ordnance officers and obtains payload space in a V-2 rocket for use in his dramatic experiment. The proof-of-principle launch will be conducted at night to allow visual and photographic observation of the artificial meteors produced by ejection of small Army rifle grenades at high altitude. When the shaped charges are fired, they will produce jets of iron or copper particles that should be briefly visible as meteor-like trails. Dr James Van Allen of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory supervises installation of the test equipment in the V-2 warhead. Actual construction of the grenade launcher assembly is handled by the New Mexico School of Mines in Albuquerque. 16 December 1946 In calibration of the imminent experiment, rifle grenades are launched to low altitude at night from the Organ Mountains near the White Sands missile range launch site and are photographed by telescopes and cameras. Arrow, above, indicates supersonic slug of incandescent iron emerging from rifle grenade and producing a simulated meteor. 17 December 1946 Zwicky has recruited many professional and amateur astronomers and meteor observers to help track the flight of the missile; they are positioned at sites all over New Mexico and into Arizona. Over 30 cameras are installed within a 20-mile radius of the launch site, including an 8-inch Schmidt telescope shipped from Mt Palomar, California. Other cameras are carried aloft in aircraft to assist in triangulation of the rocket's path. In addition, astronomers Vesto M Slipher, of the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona; Edwin F Carpenter, at Kitt Peak, Arizona; and Lincoln LaPaz (a noted authority on meteors) at Albuquerque, are primed to track the test. The 18-inch Schmidt telescope hundreds of miles away at Mt Palomar is trained on the sky over White Sands as well, but poor weather obstructs its view. V-2 number 17 is launched at 10:12 PM MDT on a vertical trajectory, aimed for maximum altitude. Its engine burns for 70 seconds, longer than any other V-2 in the entire US flight test program, and a peak velocity of over 5,400 feet per second (nearly 3,700 mph) is achieved. The rocket streaks to an altitude of some 116 miles before exploding. Ground observers as far away as Arizona are able to easily track the rocket's exhaust, and even after the engine runs out of fuel, its glowing nozzle components are clearly visible as it soars into space. Unfortunately, the artificial meteors are never seen; the conclusion is that the grenades may not have fired. Zwicky is determined to pursue the experiments and has ambitious plans to launch similar shaped-charge artificial meteors from multistage rockets, balloons, artillery pieces, and aircraft. He is obstructed, however, by Harvard astronomer Fred Whipple, an influential member of rocket science committees, who reverses his earlier support for the project and now steadfastly refuses to allow further such experimentation on the grounds that the technology is immature and unreliable. Whipple unaccountably accuses Zwicky of misuse of public property and threatens to sue him. Zwicky will only be permitted to conduct another similar experiment in October 1957, but he remains angry about Whipple's obstructionism for decades. On December 11-12, 1950, Whipple heads a White Sands upper-atmosphere research project called "T-Day" in which launches of four Army Signal Corps Aerobee sounding rockets equipped with grenade charges are conducted in parallel with Signal Corps high-altitude balloon flights and a night launch of the large Navy Viking VI rocket, all timed to coincide with the maximum of the Geminid meteor shower. Zwicky is excluded from the event. The early phase of the Green Fireball phenomenon, December 1948-February 1949 5 December 1948 At 9:05 PM MST, the crew of a USAF C-47 transport flying from Lowry AFB, Colorado, to Williams AFB, Chandler, AZ, sees a green flarelike light just west of Las Vegas, NM. At 9:30 they report by radio to Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, that they had seen another green flare rise from the ground to 500 ft altitude on the eastern slope of the Sandia Mountains at 9:27. Pioneer Air flight 63, another C-47, radios Kirtland AFB tower that its crew had seen a green light west of Las Vegas, NM at 9:35 while flying due west at 9,000 ft. They thought it was a "shooting star" at first, "but it was too close to the ground." The pilot, Ernest Van Lloyd, suggests that the light could have been a Very pistol flare. After landing, he telephones Kirtland tower to discuss the incident. He says that when he first saw the phenomenon it was coming straight at him and he was so startled that he attempted to jerk the plane out of the way. The light then trailed off to the ground. It was pale green with a pale green trail. "When the initial report of December 5 was made at Sandia Base, a conference was held between Air Force, Army and Department of Justice personnel for the purpose of evaluating this information. It is understood that a report of this has gone to respective headquarters." Very shortly after these reports, University of New Mexico News Bureau head Dr Ward Fenley drafted a press release and "transmitted" it (in LaPaz's words) to NM newspapers in an effort to alert the public to report similar incidents. However, the press release was halted before publication due to "pressure from other agencies also investigating this occurrence." Secrecy about the light phenomenon was rapidly put in place, probably on the initial suspicion that the lights represented unknown ground-based activity. The early incidents appeared very much like flares. (LaPaz-Rees, 13 Dec) 6 December Kirtland AFB Office of Special Investigations agent S/A Melvin E Neef interviews Van Lloyd and copilot James Smith at the Pioneer Air operations office on the base. The pilots recount the incident but describe it differently from their first report: as a white flash, then a whitish-orange object. They can give no estimate of the object's size or range. 11:53 PM: Security officer Joseph Tolouse sees a greenish flare lasting 2-3 seconds over Sandia Base. He reports it to Neef on the 11th. 8 December The Kirtland OSI agents Stahl and Neef interview Capt K K Miller, New Mexico State Police, at his headquarters in Santa Fe. He says no unusual flare reports have come in to his office, but promises to refer any future witnesses of flare activity to Kirtland. The agents also visit K D Flock, Santa Fe National Forest Supervisor, in Santa Fe. Flock had received no aerial phenomena reports in 1948, but says that in the summer of 1947 a woman named Madeline G. Merchant had contacted him at least five times over a six week period about sightings of flying saucers and luminous phenomena. Flock says he will alert his rangers to watch for unusual lights or objects, and permits the KAFB OSI agents to use his fire towers as observation posts if desired. The OSI agents interview Chief of Police Matt O'Brien in Las Vegas, who also says that he has received no flare reports. NM State Police patrolman Noland Utz has the same news, and agrees to cooperate with the Air Force special agents. The agents interview the wife of the owner of the flying service at Watson Airport in Las Vegas, as well as J D Miller, a local CAA official, and four of his employees. None know anything. The airport personnel say that no night flying was originating from the field. At 5:45 Stahl and Neef take off from Kirtland AFB in a Beech T-7 (C-45) and fly to Las Vegas. The weather is "CAVU" -- completely clear with unlimited visibility. The Moon is to their right. At 6:33, while ten miles east of the Las Vegas radio range station, heading due east, they both see a brilliant green light about 2,000 ft above them, coming toward them at high speed from 30 deg to their left, on a path from 60 deg ENE to 240 WSW. It is similar to a USAF green flare, but more intense and larger. Its trajectory is flat and parallel to the ground. It lasts about two seconds, then burns out and drops off with orange fragments. They stay in the area for another 90 minutes but see nothing more.