target at 27,000 feet, some 30 miles south of Munich, traveling at 900 mph.  Capt. ------ reported that the object that he saw was now in that area.  A few minutes later radar called again to say that the target had climbed to 50,000 feet, and was circling 40 miles south of Munich.

Capt. ------ is an experienced pilot now flying F-80’s and is
considered to be completely reliable.  The sighting was verified by
Capt. ------ , also an F-80 pilot.

The possibility that this was a balloon was checked but the answer from Air Weather Service was “not a balloon.”  No aircraft were in the area.  Nothing we know of, except possibly experimental aircraft, which are not in Germany, can climb 23,000 feet in a matter of minutes and travel 900 miles per hour.

By the end of 1948, Project Sign had received several hundred UFO reports.  Of these, 167 had been saved as good reports.  About three dozen were “Unknown.”  Even though the UFO reports were getting better and more numerous, the enthusiasm over the interplanetary idea was cooling off.  The same people who had fought to go to Godman AFB to talk to Colonel Hix and his UFO observers in January now had to be prodded when a sighting needed investigating.  More and more work was being pushed off onto the other investigative organization that was helping ATIC.  The kickback on the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation was beginning to dampen a lot of enthusiasms.  It was definitely a bear market for UFO’s.

A bull market was on the way, however.  Early 1949 was to bring “little lights” and green fireballs.

The “little lights” were UFO’s, but the green fireballs were real.

CHAPTER FOUR

Green Fireballs, Project Twinkle, Little Lights, and Grudge

At exactly midnight on September 18, 1954, my telephone rang.  It was Jim Phalen, a friend of mine from the Long Beach Press-Telegram, and he had a “good flying saucer report,” hot off the wires.  He read it to me.  The lead line was:  “Thousands of people saw a huge fireball light up dark New Mexico skies tonight.”

The story went on to tell about how a “blinding green” fireball the size of a full moon had silently streaked southeast across Colorado and northern New Mexico at eight-forty that night.  Thousands of people had seen the fireball.  It had passed right over a crowded football stadium at Santa Fe, New Mexico, and people in Denver said it “turned night into day.”  The crew of a TWA airliner flying into Albuquerque from Amarillo, Texas, saw it.  Every police and newspaper switchboard in the two-state area was jammed with calls.

One of the calls was from a man inquiring if anything unusual had happened recently.  When he was informed about the mysterious fireball he heaved an audible sigh of relief, “Thanks,” he said, “I was afraid I’d gotten some bad bourbon.”  And he hung up.

Dr. Lincoln La Paz, world-famous authority on meteorites and head of the University of New Mexico’s Institute of Meteoritics, apparently took the occurrence calmly.  The wire story said he had told a reporter that he would plot its course, try to determine where it landed, and go out and try to find it.  “But,” he said, “I don’t expect to find anything.”