Los Alamos Conference on Aerial Phenomena, 1949

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Conference on AERIAL PRENOMENA
Page 12
to t:1.e univers1ty of Neu Mexico, whert? h\9 was lecturiDS, we call.ed a confer­
ence Yith Major Godsoe and oth<?r interested. parties. Re ~ve a brief resume
of t.~ observations that ha.d b:,en mado to date. Now, Kaplan is one or the
charter members of the Americn:n. Iirtteor Sooiety, and he said certainly theee
could not be conventional meteorite fe.11s.
Re, of course, mentioned as other
p<"' :,,h. do ub,o have not gone into it more thoroughly, the poeeibility of
abnormal types o:f meteorite falls, tb.Bt misht come in trom a peculiar direc•
tiOil or m1.ght droop at very l01r1 level, but I don't think he was able to
ex:i>lain the absence ot sound.
Dr. Teller: Did I und rstand you cor,:ectly that the velocity ot the object
appears to be some 50 kilometers per second?
Dr. Lo.Paz: No. In the case of the green i>ireballe sanething between 3 miles
per second ond 12 miles per eecond.
l)epeM.ing, you see, it you choose one
ruled map or another. For exnnrple, let me illustrate how that aff"ects the
velocity cleterm:l.nat1on. This is the one I th1nk poesibl7 best repre11ents the
observations of the case ot the fireball of December 12. That is the pat~ I
assu:ne the Los Alamos observers sav the same point of the curves that the
Starvation Peak observers d1d, likevioe to the point ot disappearance. It we
deny that possibility, the pathmipt shorten to this dotted Une.
(Dr. LaPaz
worked on maps ...ri~i.h Dr. Teller, explaining paths.) Drappillg from 25 to eome•
thing betveen ll and 12 miles. The January . 30 observation gave us our first
long path.
Dr. Teller: J!ow long was it?
Dr. La.Paz: The firet observatio~ we bad here indicated . . . . •
That vss
'because of errors in the deter.llina.t1on ot the azimuth at t.b.e point of begin•
ning, made due to the faulty transit they used. But that's correct that the
path runs aver 100 miles.
Dr. Teller: And how long does it take?
Dr. La.Paz: Duration estimatec range t'rom 5 to around 14 secon.do.
I think that
a 10 second av-era&re is about the beat, that vould give about 10 miles per
second.
Dr. Bradbury: Green ie not an unknOffl'l. color in meteors!
Dr. LaPa.z: If I were to rewrite the report that I first presented on that 8\lb­
ject, instead of oa.ying "re.rely observed
0 tbis color green, I think I woul4 DOY
ea.y "never observed".
You sometimes see green, Dr. ·Bradbury, but it 1a a blue­
green. The blue♦-g?"een color. ie rare., but it ie observed. Por instance,
Dr. Shem.an Smith9s observation wae essentially a blue-green, but on the bluo
side.
Dr. Bradbury: What other colon do you see 1n meteors?