When Jim Phalen had read the rest of the report he asked, “What was it?”

“It sounds to me like the green fireballs are back,” I answered.

“What the devil are green fireballs?”

What the devil are green fireballs?  I’d like to know.  So would a lot of other people.

The green fireballs streaked into UFO history late in November 1948, when people around Albuquerque, New Mexico, began to report seeing mysterious “green flares” at night.  The first reports mentioned only a “green streak in the sky,” low on the horizon.  From the description the Air Force Intelligence people at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque and the Project Sign people at ATIC wrote the objects off as flares.  After all, thousands of GI’s had probably been discharged with a duffel bag full of “liberated” Very pistols and flares.

But as days passed the reports got better.  They seemed to indicate that the “flares” were getting larger and more people were reporting seeing them.  It was doubtful if this “growth” was psychological because there had been no publicity—­so the Air Force decided to reconsider the “flare” answer.  They were in the process of doing this 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.