PROJECT 1947: Scientific Advisory Board Meeting at the Pentagon, 3 November, 1949

[Previous subject discussed: A report by Dr. Louis H. Ridenour on the development of a "security attachment" to improve "cryptographic security" for U.S. Air Force IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) systems.]

DR. VON KARMAN: Thank you very much, Dr. Ridenour. Are there any questions or remarks concerning this subject? Well, then we will proceed to the next point. The next point is a special report by Professor Joseph Kaplan. I hope it is full of surprise and tension.

PROF. KAPLAN: I think it is full of surprise, but I hope it isn't full of tension. I hesitate, in fact, to take too much of the time of the Board, after the very important briefing of yesterday, and the Ridenour report, to call your attention to this problem in which I have been involved for the last year and one-half or so.

I might go to the heart of the problem immediately. It all has to do with a series of incidents that I first heard of

in February 1948--incidents that are laid essentially, or reportedly almost entirely, in the West Texas or New Mexico area.

For this reason, and because of the sensitivity of that area -- the presence there of much of our atomic energy activities at the Air Base, etc., -- the material has been classified SECRET. I think it is the only reason that perhaps it should be classified SECRET. It has to do with the observations of some 46 incidents which have been picked out as real -- the observation of what we are referring to as "green fireballs."

I should apologize to Dr. Valley, who I think is the Committee's expert in the field of flying discs and things of that sort, but I got into this entirely accidentally and sometimes I have been very sorry that I ever did.

A brief history of the affair is this: I was at the University of New Mexico to give their annual Sigma Psi lecture when Professor Lincoln LaPaz, Director, Institute of Meteoritics, University of New Mexico, told me about these observations. Like everyone else, he hears about flying discs and things of that sort. I was skeptical, and, as I mentioned, sorry that I ever showed up at the University of New Mexico at that time. But after talking to the people involved, I realized there was a real problem there.

I called Dr. von Karman's attention to it. He, in turn, called General Cabell's attention to the problem, the Director of Intelligence, and he requested I continue looking into the problem.

As far as the Board is concerned, and the Office of Air Intelligence, our part of this problem has been completed in that the situation is now under control. At least proposed studies of these things have been delegated to the Geophysical Research Directorate, a group that studies upper atmospheric and other atmospheric phenomena. They are taking steps to really make some scientific studies of these things.

I think I should acknowledge help from a great many people, Much of this has been done voluntarily. Dr. Bradbury has been extremely kind in participating in this and making available many of his people, such people as Dr. Gamow, Dr. Teller, Dr. Reines, and other have been concerned with this and are as puzzled as I am.

I might mention the way we got it into the hands of the Geophysical Directorate. I think essentially I finally stuck my neck out and proposed an explanation for these so-called "green fireballs" -- an explanation which sounded reasonable enough to pass it on to the Geophysical people.

Dr. LaPaz has been working on this informally; he has had no research contract or appointment involved in this.

The possibilities of rumor and panic that might develop in that area if loose talk about these green fireballs develops, I think, are great. I think it is to the credit of Dr. LaPaz and Colonel Rees of the Office of Security Investigation at Kirtland, who has been doing a lot of work on his own time, that the security has been beautifully kept. As far as I know, there are absolutely no incidents or too much talk about this entire affair.

Now, the first question that I can answer is: is this a real phenomena, these green fireballs?

I shall describe some of their characteristics shortly, but I would like to answer that first question first. That is: I think it is generally agreed by competent observers that it is real. I might mention some of the people who have seem some of these things themselves: Dr. LaPaz, who is one of the best meteoriticists in the country, who is able to take, let us say, several hundred reports and observations of fireballs and put them together and then actually find the fallen meteorite -- he did this when he found the Norton County stone some year or so ago, the [largest] stone meteor ever recovered -- is one of the people who has seen this. His competence in the field, I think, is unquestioned. Although I might say for the record, he still does not believe that this is a real phenomenon. (laughter) His feeling, I think, is that this is man-made; and from yesterday's meeting, you can guess as to what nationality the men are who are supposed to have

The general character of other people who have seen these has been high. I mean their ability to observe these fireballs has been much higher than the average group which has.

Others who have observed them, people on the professional level, are: a professor of geology at the University of New Mexico accustomed to field work; a professor of civil engineering, who is quite experienced in the field of meteoritics; someone who has been interviewed, as far as I know, that Professor Deams of the University of Virginia told me last night -- I saw him at the hotel -- that one of the group leaders at Los Alamos, perhaps he should be interviewed, an able observer, has seen these phenomena; and I have here a report from a no less competent observer than Dr. Donald Menzel, who has seen some aerial phenomena and has described them completely and is somewhat puzzled about the whole affair. So I think the reality of these things is certainly out of question.

Some of the reactions to my proposed explanation may be in order, but I will give them to you later. I have a letter here from Dr. Menzel, who was asked by Colonel ~~Dame~~ ^Bain, the Commanding Officer of Holloman Air Force base, to read all of the information including my proposed explanation that I passed on to the Board, through the Secretariat to General Cabell, that took the problem out of our hands and landed it, first, into Research and Development in here and then to the Geophysical Research Directorate.

Colonel Rees has prepared two reports, one dated 19 April 1949, and the other dated 12 October 1949, each of which cover about 23 incidents. I might mention that I detect in these reports a very slight secular trend that indicates that, if you wait long enough, these will turn out to be fireballs.

I also have a report of a fireball observation and its resultant analysis, for anyone who is interested, in which that particular fireball is not entirely different from some of these that have been observed.

The summary of the observations up to around the middle of April 1949, the common characteristics of the incidents are essentially these -- and this also applies to Menzel's observation.

"a. Green color, sometimes described as greenish-white, bright green, yellow-green, or blue green"

"c. Speed less than that of a meteor, but more than any known type of aircraft."

The fourth here, and the one which [is] definitely different than observations made on practically all fireballs that have ever been reported is:

I think it would be interesting at this point to quote from the report that Dr. LaPaz made -- the one that I first saw -- and to indicate his conclusions about this particular incident:

"Among the numerous observations so far made, there is only one pair of corresponding observations, i.e., those made simultaneously by different groups of observers at widely separated stations. The only such observations are those obtained on the night of December 12 by one group of observers near Starvation Peak (Bernal, New Mexico.)" The time was dated December 12, 1948, 9h 2m plus or minus 30 seconds. "and a second pair of observers stationed within the Los Alamos reservation. By graphic reduction the simultaneously made observations, the following facts have been determined: the green fireball of December 12, 9h 2m plus or minus 30s appeared very near a point with the coordinates latitude 35° 50', longitude 106° 40' and disappeared near a point with the coordinates latitude 35° 45', longitude 107° some minutes, traversing a nearly or exactly horizontal path within a length of very nearly twenty-five (25) miles at an altitude above the surface of the earth of approximately 8 to 10 miles, depending on the estimate of angular altitude employed in the reduction; the velocity with respect to the earth works out at between 8 and 12 miles a second, depending on the duration estimate used. It should be observed that the above results are obtained under the assumption that the points of appearance and disappearance of the fireball were seen simultaneously by both the Bernal and Los Alamos groups. In case this assumption is not fulfilled, the real path could very easily be no more than 10 to 12 miles long, the velocity with respect to the earth then working out at between 3 and six miles a second. While there is thus considerable uncertainty because of the lack of confirming azimuth observations from a third station, concordance in the five (5) different estimates of angular elevation make it most unlikely that the linear height of the fireball was much less than 8 miles and not much more than 10 miles. It is interesting to observe that the extension of the 25-mile path first given passes almost centrally across the Los Alamos reservation."

It points out here the "significant differences between the fireballs observed in the interval December 5-13 and typical meteors.

"The horizontal nature of the paths of most of the December fireballs is most unusual. Genuine meteors are rarely observed to move in horizontal paths."

"Many of the green fireballs now appearing descend on nearly vertical paths, whereas, in earlier months almost all of the green fireballs observed moved almost horizontally."

"There appears to be a concentration of New Mexico incidents near weekends, especially on Sunday and near the hour of 8:00 (in the interval from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.)."

DR BRADBURY: This should not be discredited because it is the post-cocktail hour. (laughter)

(Extract from report submitted by Dr. LaPaz on 20 Dec. 1948)
(Professor Kaplan continues reading)

"Again the very low height of the December fireball discussed in section 2 above sets it off in sharp contrast from the genuine meteors for which heights of the order of 40 or more miles are normally observed.

"The velocity determined for the fireball of December 12 is much less than the velocities determined from typical meteors (and yet is considerably greater than the speeds of the V-2 Rockets or jet planes or of conventional flares).

"In the case of meteorites that penetrate to as low levels as that determined for the fireball of December 12, the observed luminous phenomena are always accompanied by very violent noises. No noises whatever have been observed in connection with the various December fireballs so far investigated."

In most of these cases, observers were near enough that they should have heard the noises.

"Genuine meteors normally show remarkable variations in brightness beginning as fine thin hair lines, which are scarcely visible to the observer and then brightening up to flash out near the end of their paths. In the case of the December fireballs

most of the observers have reported that the green balls appeared almost instantly at their full brightness."

Here I might just quote from the report of the Canadians of April 3, 1949, which has been pretty completely analyzed, where it states:

"That the fireball seems to have appeared almost instantly with nearly its maximum brightness. Relatively few of the observers are sure that the saw it from the beginning, but those who did so describe it as suddenly appearing rather than appearing first as an ordinary shooting star. The speed was distinctly slow. Nearly all observers who estimated the time of the flight placed it between 3 and 5 seconds. The words which were most commonly used to describe the color were: greenish-blue, greenish-white, bluish-white at the beginning of the path and orange at the end of the path."

One of the most sensational incidents in the New Mexico area is one which lasted much longer than this and which was green at the beginning of the path and orange at the end of the path.

"The three groups of anomalous greenish luminous phenomena shows a curious association with well known meteor showers, although none of these meteor showers normally produce extremely bright green fireballs, such as those recently observed."

Of course, since they have been observed fairly often for around two years now, this is not a very important point.

"As noted in an earlier communication, the remarkably green vivid color reported for most of the December fireballs is rarely observed in the case of genuine meteors."

By laboratory tests described it as artificial to color, wave length around 5,218 Angstrom Units. And after one of these incidents, Dr. Crozier, who is an expert in atmospheric particles, actually tried to collect some material and observe some copper; but those results are not very trustworthy.

"The duration estimates of between 2 and 3 seconds reported for the green fireballs are considerably longer that those (0.4 - 0.5 seconds) for the ordinary visual meteors, but shorter than the duration estimates invariably reported in the case of a genuine meteorites fall (5 to 30 seconds or even longer)."

You will notice in this one of Canada the times were just about the same as those reported for New Mexico and West Texas fireballs.

"For none of the green fireballs has a train of sparks or a dust cloud been reported. This contrasts sharply with the behavior noted in case of meteoric fireballs -- particularly those that penetrate to the very low levels where the green fireballs of December 12 was observed."

"On the basis of the various differences in which attention is called"....it is concluded..."that the fireball of December 12 was definitely non-meteoric and that in all probability the same is true of most, if not all, the other bright green fireballs, which the OSI has had under investigation."

Since time runs short, I would like to just quote from one more observation of LaPaz's -- one of January 30, which was observed by a great many people, and the pertinent quote here is that its horizontal path was 143 miles long at a velocity of from seven to fourteen miles per second. It is among the brightest observed in the last quarter-century. Again, no detonations were observed. In this case, differences of color were reported. Some observers in Texas -- this was seen over a large territory -- reported its color as blue, orange, red and even purple instead of green.

In conclusion I don't think I'll bother to read Menzel's report. Anyone who wishes to see it can read it; it is dated 16 May 1949. He concludes that the whole phenomena is puzzling. He

saw the greenish tinge. His comments on my proposal and on the reports that he read were this:

"Circumstances force me to conclude that the phenomena described are actually real. With regard to Dr. Kaplan's explanation, which deserves very serious consideration, I merely raise the question as to why the phenomenon seems confined to the Alamogordo region. Or, perhaps, you may have further reports." He feels that further consideration should be given.

I think the most puzzling aspects of the entire phenomena, the description of this January 30 phenomena, which is reported by Dr. LaPaz as having been the most sensational fireball recorded in 25 years, again, indicates the magnitude of this apparition. I think the absence of sound is really a puzzling thing. The absence of persistent trails or dust clouds, many attempts have been made to find the end path of the meteorite and to pick up meteoritic materials. None of these have succeeded. So there are still many puzzling things associated with this.

A number of us, including Dr. Teller at Los Alamos now, myself and others have attempted to come up with ideas about the origin and nature of this thing. I have discussed it with one or two people. The general impression -- it seems to be Dr. Teller's and Dr. Holt's, who used to be at the University of New Mexico and is an experienced observer in the field of atmospheric phenomena -- is this: perhaps the frequency of these reports is based on the extra-ordinary fine visibility in that region and on the fact that a greater number of people than ever before are looking

at the skies in that area. Dr. Teller seems to agree that, at least, is a start in explaining these things.

Two things are needed. Of course, no one has obtained a spectrum of the phenomenon. One reporter was one of the professors of New Mexico who said he saw one of these objects for approximately five minutes just shortly after sunset, went into to telephone to Dr. LaPaz, came out and it was still there, but no pictures were obtained. The plan now is to set up 180° cameras with filters to find out what the wave length is, whether the radiation is multidynamic or not, what the wave length of the radiation is, and at least get a picture of these objects.

I think unless there are questions, or anyone is curious as to my proposed explanation, I would rather not discuss it now. I am perfectly willing to talk about it, and this carries us at least part of the way.

I feel that it is perhaps a new kind of meteor that has been observed, or a new atmospheric phenomena, but there are difficulties associated with it. At least, I am convinced that it is real and will shortly be in good hands, we have answered General Cabell's question by saying that it is a real phenomena and should be photographed.

Dr. Bradbury is familiar with this as well as I am and perhaps would make a comment or two.

PROF. KAPLAN: The continuation of this work? My report was sent to General Cabell through Colonel Holzman. He, in turn, sent it to the Geophysical Directorate at the Cambridge Research Laboratory, and they are now setting up the necessary observational program to obtain pictures and spectra. Dr. Bradbury has agreed to cooperate with that program.

DR. VON KARMAN: Thank you very much. Dr. Bradbury, do you wish to say something?

DR. BRADBURY: I have only one comment that I would like to add to what Dr. Kaplan has just said. The absence of sound is puzzling, but it is in a sense comforting; in that, if at these speeds and these altitudes, there is no sound, the mass of the object, if it is a material object, might be quite small. I think this leads to one conclusion: one need not expect nor worry about belligerent action involved in these things. I think it can be said, undoubtedly, it is a real phenomenon. Whether or not it is a new phenomenon, and whether or not the confirmation in New Mexico is something which has simply arisen out of the large number of -- well, to be quite frank -- security guards see these things at night because it is their business to be out at night on guard duty, sentry duty, etc., and the number of these people has increased greatly in New Mexico in the last couple of years. This, I think, is the most likely explanation for the increased observation of frequency of these things at this time.

DR. GUNN: Mr. Chairman, I would hate to upset any claims of Arizona, Texas, or anything like this, but I have never heard of these things before Dr. Kaplan brought it up. It is all new to me. But I saw what I thought was a green meteorite over Cumberland, Maryland, on August 20, I think it was, about 11:00 o'clock. I thought it was a Very pistol. I checked with my pilot, and we were about 8,000 feet. He saw it, too. It reads along directly with this description as has been given here. All that I can say is that it is a long ways from Texas.

DR. GUNN: The pilot saw it. We could be reached if there is any interest in it. I was interested enough to make a note of it in my notebook, but I thought it was a meteorite, more or less. It was green; that was the outstanding characteristic. It was green, and I looked it up in the Encyclopedia to see what it said about green meteorites. I couldn't find any reference to it, but it struck me as interesting. I can give you the exact details.

PROF. KAPLAN: This Canadian green fireball is one of the first of its kind. I think Dr. Bradbury is probably on the right track--that the object is small. It is unusual to observe small objects of that kind. Small meteorites that usually come in showers are very small objects.

DR. BRADBURY: This becomes quite puzzling, because the reverse of these things we have talked about the radiation energy business before--radiation. This becomes puzzling in another way. So much light is given off.

PROF. KAPLAN: If you use my hypothesis, the only green radiation that I know of that one can get from the air is my favorite spectrum line, the green aurora.

PROF. KAPLAN: It is also quite unusual. Most of the meteorites come in at random. The nonshire meteorites come in at random. Others come in directly from a radiant. But we calculated at the last conference at Los Alamos that if my proposal is correct, that this is radiation due to the air itself excited by the meteorite, then the efficiency of the source would really be quite remarkable. It would be a very high sourch [sic] for inter-metric work, Dr. Dryden.

DR. BRADBURY: I think there is one other thing to note in this--apparently, apparently, the frequency of observation as well as the target accuracy is apparently not increasing with time.

DR. THOMPSON: Professor Kaplan, how reliable are the altitude observations? That is, could these be occuring [sic] at much higher altitudes than the source?

as reliable as altitude observations are for other reported meteorite incidents.

DR. THOMPSON: The absence of sound and perhaps some other phenomenon is related to altitude.

PROF. KAPLAN: I think it is the same as observations on the fireball that has been so nicely analyzed in Canada, perhaps even better, because of the high selectivity of the personnel. Out of perhaps 100 reports on this fireball they will select 15 or 20 observers. It is the same kind of data. LaPaz is quite able. Of course, he knows the field very well. In the case of this observation, for example, the altitude varied from 8 to 30 miles. That is the usual altitude range that you get. He consistently gets low altitudes. Professor Snoddy at Virginia is an experienced aurora observer, and he criticizes the altitude observation. He feels that it is the weakest part of this.

DR. THOMPSON: You might also offer the possibility of explaining the apparent parallel trajectory, i.e., as distinguished from the ordinary meteorite. Assuming that there is a lot of aerodynamic--I mean they go higher than you really think.

PROF. KAPLAN: Probably. I am inclined to believe that the altitude observations are not as good as they should be.

PROF. KAPLAN: Yes, but the difference between these, ordinary meteorites, fireballs, usually come out fairly close to

DR. BRADBURY: There is also a curious thing which I think was probably more true than it is now, is the projectories seem to follow more and more south direction than they did in a random study. I think that was rather disappearing, was it not? Do you recall?

PROF. KAPLAN: Yes. Well, as I indicated, I didn't want to take too much time of the Board, but this high selectivity of direction seems to indicate that some group was trying to pinpoint Los Alamos with a new sort of weapon for that general area. That disappeared and the horizontal path. There are more of them coming in more nearly to the vertical. I think the problem should be studied, and that is now under way. It may, after our knowledge of meteoritics, increase our security in that area--I mean the whole problem of search, etc.

DR. WARREN: Have the exposed photographic plates of any of the astronomic observatories indicated anything similar to this?

PROF. KAPLAN: No. No. They almost got a spectrum. They removed the spectrograph from a favorable location two or three days, I think, before one of these appeared. But so much of this work has been carried on in a somewhat informal and slightly confused way that there has been no ogranized program. There will be now.

DR. VON KARMAN: Well, gentlemen, I consider this question as an extra curricula activity for the Board. At first I wasn't sure whether we should call on the physicists or the psychologists, especially since these different phenomena were observed so close to an atomic establishment. I argued with myself whether or not the psychologists might first enter this subject. However, I am glad to say I was wrong. I believe your (Dr. Kaplan's) explanation was on the basis of normal physics. As Professor LaPaz said, based on his familiarity for long decades, the problem of meteorites are certainly not of heavenly origin, so I owe it to General Cabell to base it on my familiarity with rockets and state that it is of man-made origin. (laughter) I think the two arguments are equivalent. So I think it has some interest, not from a military point of view but from a general sci[ence] point of view. So I think we appreciate very much the time and th[ought] that our member, Professor Kaplan, devoted to this problem, and we hope he will carry on.

DR. VON KARMAN: It may be that as something comes out, Colonel Holzman will let us know.

DR. VON KARMAN: I believe it is perhaps time to go to lunch, so we'll continue at 2:30. At that time we have three points. 1. the report of Professor Houghton on the meeting of the Geophysical Research Panel. 2. Colonel Barden will talk on the Research and Development Master Plan for 1952 Budget. 3. Organizational questions of Panels and Committees. The meeting is adjourned.