AFB, Air Defense Command people,
Dr. La Paz, and some of the most distinguished scientists at Los
Alamos had seen at least one.

In mid-February 1949 a conference was called at Los Alamos to
determine what should be done to further pursue the investigation.
The Air Force, Project Sign, the intelligence people at Kirtland, and
other interested parties had done everything they could think of and
still no answer.

Such notable scientists as Dr. Joseph Kaplan, a world-renowned
authority on the physics of the upper atmosphere, Dr. Edward Teller,
of H-bomb fame, and of course Dr. La Paz, attended, along with a lot
of military brass and scientists from Los Alamos.

This was one conference where there was no need to discuss whether
or not this special type of UFO, the green fireball, existed. Almost
everyone at the meeting had seen one. The purpose of the conference
was to decide whether the fireballs were natural or man-made and how
to find out more about them.

As happens in any conference, opinions were divided. Some people
thought the green fireballs were natural fireballs. The proponents of
the natural meteor, or meteorite, theory presented facts that they
had dug out of astronomical journals. Greenish-colored meteors,
although not common, had been observed on many occasions. The flat
trajectory, which seemed to be so important in proving that the green
fireballs were extraterrestrial, was also nothing new. When viewed
from certain angles, a meteor can appear to have a flat trajectory.
The reason that so many had been seen during December of 1948 and
January of 1949 was that the weather had been unusually clear all
over the Southwest during this period.

Dr. La Paz led the group who believed that the green fireballs were
not meteors or meteorites. His argument was derived from the facts
that he had gained after many days of research and working with Air
Force intelligence teams. He stuck to the points that (1) the
trajectory was too flat, (2) the color was too green, and (3) he
couldn't locate any fragments even though he had found the spots
where they should have hit the earth if they were meteorites.

People who were at that meeting have told me that Dr. La Paz's
theory was very interesting and that each point was carefully
considered. But evidently it wasn't conclusive enough because when
the conference broke up, after two days, it was decided that the
green fireballs were a natural phenomenon of some kind. It w