Encounter Atlas
Starting in late 1948, pilots, scientists and security guards around New Mexico's atomic sites reported brilliant green fireballs crossing the sky. They looked like meteors but were described as flying flat and level, burning a vivid green, and making no sound.
Meteor expert Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico saw one himself and said it did not behave like an ordinary meteor. The Army worried about foreign weapons, and in 1949 scientists including Edward Teller met at Los Alamos to discuss them. The Air Force ran Project Twinkle to photograph them, with little result.
Today most researchers think they were unusually bright bolide meteors, which can glow green from burning metals.
Browse 10,622 US Air Force Project Blue Book case files on the map or by state.
What witnesses report
- A bright green ball of light
- A flat, level path
- No sound
- Breaking into fragments at the end
Famous cases
- 1948Pilot sightings
New Mexico - 1949Los Alamos fireball conference
Los Alamos, New Mexico
Seen the Green fireballs?
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