After many sleepless hours they finally plotted
where it should have struck the earth. They searched the area but
found nothing. They went back over the area time and time again--
nothing. As Dr. La Paz later told me, this was the first time that he
seriously doubted the green fireballs were meteorites.

Within a few more days the fireballs were appearing almost nightly.
The intelligence officers from Kirtland decided that maybe they could
get a good look at one of them, so on the night of December 8 two
officers took off in an airplane just before dark and began to cruise
around north of Albuquerque. They had a carefully worked out plan
where each man would observe certain details if they saw one of the
green fireballs. At 6:33P.M. they saw one. This is their report:

At 6:33P.M. while flying at an indicated altitude of 11,500 feet, a
strange phenomenon was observed. Exact position of the aircraft at
time of the observation was 20 miles east of the Las Vegas, N.M.,
radio range station. The aircraft was on a compass course of 90
degrees. Capt. ------ was pilot and I was acting as copilot. I first
observed the object and a split second later the pilot saw it. It was
2,000 feet higher than the plane, and was approaching the plane at a
rapid rate of speed from 30 degrees to the left of our course. The
object was similar in appearance to a burning green flare, the kind
that is commonly used in the Air Force. However, the light was much
more intense and the object appeared considerably larger than a
normal flare. The trajectory of the object, when first sighted, was
almost flat and parallel to the earth. The phenomenon lasted about 2
seconds. At the end of this time the object seemed to begin to burn
out and the trajectory then dropped off rapidly. The phenomenon was
of such intensity as to be visible from the very moment it ignited.

Back at Wright-Patterson AFB, ATIC was getting a blow-by-blow
account of the fireball activity but they were taking no direct part
in the investigation. Their main interest was to review all incoming
UFO reports and see if the green fireball reports were actually
unique to the Albuquerque area. They were. Although a good many UFO
reports were coming in from other parts of the U.S., none fit the
description of the green fireballs.

All during December 1948 and January 1949 the green fireballs
continued to invade the New Mexico skies. Everyone, including the
intelligence officers at Kirtland