on the night of December 5, 1948, a memorable night in the green
fireball chapter of UFO history.

At 9:27P.M. on December 5, an Air Force C-47 transport was flying at
18,000 feet 10 miles east of Albuquerque. The pilot was a Captain
Goede. Suddenly the crew, Captain Goede, his co-pilot, and his
engineer were startled by a green ball of fire flashing across the
sky ahead of them. It looked something like a huge meteor except that
it was a bright green color and it didn't arch downward, as meteors
usually do. The green-colored ball of fire had started low, from near
the eastern slopes of the Sandia Mountains, arched upward a little,
then seemed to level out. And it was too big for a meteor, at least
it was larger than any meteor that anyone in the C-47 had ever seen
before. After a hasty discussion the crew decided that they'd better
tell somebody about it, especially since they had seen an identical
object twenty-two minutes before near Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Captain Goede picked up his microphone and called the control tower
at Kirtland AFB and reported what he and his crew had seen. The tower
relayed the message to the local intelligence people.

A few minutes later the captain of Pioneer Airlines Flight 63 called
Kirtland Tower. At 9:35P.M. he had also seen a green ball of fire
just east of Las Vegas, New Mexico. He was on his way to Albuquerque
and would make a full report when he landed.

When he taxied his DC-3 up to the passenger ramp at Kirtland a few
minutes later, several intelligence officers were waiting for him. He
reported that at 9:35P.M. he was on a westerly heading, approaching
Las Vegas from the east, when he and his co-pilot saw what they first
thought was a "shooting star." It was ahead and a little above them.
But, the captain said, it took them only a split second to realize
that whatever they saw was too low and had too flat a trajectory to
be a meteor. As they watched, the object seemed to approach their
airplane head on, changing color from orange red to green. As it
became bigger and bigger, the captain said, he thought sure it was
going to collide with them so he racked the DC-3 up in a tight turn.
As the green ball of fire got abreast of them it began to fall toward
the ground, getting dimmer and dimmer until it disappeared. Just
before he swerved the DC-3, the fireball was as big, or bigger, than
a full moon.

The intelligence officers asked a few more questions and went back
to their