File 094 · 1948–1951

Green fireballs, New Mexico

Los Alamos / Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States · Region, not street

Opened 9/4/2026

Ledger illustration of the file — not a photograph of the object. Ledger illustration of the report. High desert around the labs. — Night Ledger illustration of the file

LightsHynek NLofficialArchiveRegion80 witnesses

Standing

Unidentified

On the public record, and still open. A claim, paper, or film — not a finding that it was ours, and not a finding that it was not.

What was claimed

Green fireballs were reported over sensitive nuclear sites. The Air Force ran Project Twinkle and did not close the file to anyone’s satisfaction.

What is on the record

This file is a working record — a report, not a verdict. Official paper, if any, is linked where we have it.

From late 1948, security patrols and scientists around Los Alamos, Sandia, and Albuquerque reported slow, silent green fireballs, often horizontal, not behaving like ordinary meteors. Dr. Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico investigated on the ground and argued they were not natural. The Air Force opened Project Twinkle with cameras and spectrographs.

Twinkle produced little data and was shut down. LaPaz never recanted. The objects clustered on the map of the early nuclear state. The file is a classified worry more than a single photograph.

Could this have been ours?

The known sky, that night.

Before Sputnik the known lights were planets, meteors, aircraft, and balloons. No station. No Starlink.

Always

Venus and the bright planets

A fixed brilliant point. Does not streak. Does not hover over a street then leave. Often the first misread light in a rural report.

Always

Aircraft, balloons, meteors

Landing lights, flares, lanterns, reentries, fireballs. They are on the known sky. They do not close a file by themselves — they are what a serious look has to hold the claim against.

Orbit · Space — the desks for lights that are already named.

Sources

Project Twinkle / LaPaz reports

Paper on this file

Official or public documents that belong with this case — not a verdict.

MemoDeclassified

21 November 1950

Wilbert Smith memo — Project Magnet

Department of Transport (Canada) · Canada

Engineer Wilbert B. Smith wrote that flying saucers were real, that the matter was classified in the United States, and that a Canadian magnetic-study should proceed.

Related files

Same craft, same place, same years. A neighbor in the catalogue — not a conclusion.

LightsFrom the net

Same craft · Same country · October 2026

Blue light over southwest Bakersfield

Southwest Bakersfield, California · United States

Unidentified

Four neighbors described a blue light that blinked, vanished, and moved up and down. The sheriff had no matching calls and named drones as a possibility.