Los Alamos Conference on Aerial Phenomena, 1949

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Page 21.
Conf'erenee on AERIAL PHENOMENA
el.."P~r1litents.
I think that if anyone o~ the UCLA Institute of Geoph;ye1cs had
b~n observing., it wuld have gotten to Kaplan's ears..•.•• There are two
great advantages ·i;o this area: 'f1rat, you have clear skies at night and can
observe them as they come dawn., and second, (record blank tor minute or two).
Dr. Hollm,ay: ..... this 'W8.8 before the war. They bad a tel.ephone network
which covered a fair section ot the Eaat there. • •••• o. network so that your
obeervatione . . . . .
mention
indicate,
k:noY wat he
I
t h i s t o
I
d o n
i s d o i , g
Qt
now, but at least they- may ~ve a group ot people who ba:tte been observing.
May uot be in a position to . . . . . green fireballs, but the7 might have seen
them.
Dr. LaPaz:
My one attempt to contact . •... arid. unfortunately I did not
approach b1m age.in for 1ntormat1on, but someone acquainted vith him should
certainl.y ask~ they have observed any of this sort ot thing tbe~.
Comdr. Mandelkorn: Well, wouldn't phenomena or this nature have been reported
to tho Society, no ~tter where they had occurred?
Dr. L&Paz:
Yeo, l would think so. For exampl, you can consult the so-called
meteor notes of the Amer"tcan Meteor Society, and popular aetronotQy, they are
published from mo~th tp month with the President, c. C. Olivia, Director ot
the Florida Ob. rvatory at the University of Pennsylvania. I've been through
those very caretulJ.y. Tb.er 18 one single solitary case of a fireball which by
one ot the observers - a doubly observed fireball - 80 it was possible for me
to ....
which one of the obeervora mentions a green color. Bot this peculiar
i n
yellow-green vbich moat people in that vork find unusual, and in the ea.se of that
the elevation determined is of the order of, ob 199 kilometers from the beginning
point and rqushl¥ 100-tor the end, so I th1Jlk it is only an ordi.IID.ry fireball;
nothing unusual about it. Tb.at was the only caee I found.
Comdr. Mandel.koru:
Aocording to recent records, where the observation c~-­
tions in other parts or the country satisf'actory? At least part of the time?
Dr. LaPar;
Well, I infer tram the fact that ve bav" had so much trouble out
here and the Eut has been bra.gging about its cllmatic ad.vantages, tbat probably
during the recent month.a, thq have had good observancy.
I haven"t attempted a
full eeale check on that.
Comdr. Mandelkorn: Le~•s put it thie var then: lave there been a au:tticient
nmuber ot f'1reballs reported in the last:60 days 1n other parte ot the country
to lead us to 1nf'er that bad some ot these occurred, they would have been
reported?
Dr. LaP&z:
I think that definitely 1e true. 'lo 'llJ:f knowledge, aa far as the
contacts JJve had with Olivia and so on, there wae uotbing out ot the nomal
noticed in the East, and in the South, ~hall ve aay as tar~ &$ White Sanda.
Whether the H&l.-vard Obeervatory aetup observed arqth1Dg peculiar or not, I
don~t know.
we tried
away to get
utormat1on.
We ver.e
by
r i g h t
t b a t
t o l c l
the gentleman in cbarge down there, 1 1m sure this Vill be interest to you, that