In the late summer of 1949, Cambridge established Project Twinkle to solve the mystery.  The project called for establishing three cinetheodolite stations near White Sands, New Mexico.  A cinetheodolite is similar to a 35-mm. movie camera except when you take a photograph of an object you also get a photograph of three dials that show the time the photo was taken, the azimuth angle, and the elevation angle of the camera.  If two or more cameras photograph the same object, it is possible to obtain a very accurate measurement of the photographed object’s altitude, speed, and size.

Project Twinkle was a bust.  Absolutely nothing was photographed.  Of the three cameras that were planned for the project, only one was available.  This one camera was continually being moved from place to place.  If several reports came from a certain area, the camera crew would load up their equipment and move to that area, always arriving too late.  Any duck hunter can tell you that this is the wrong tactic; if you want to shoot any ducks pick a good place and stay put, let the ducks come to you.

The people trying to operate Project Twinkle were having financial and morale trouble.  To do a good job they needed more and better equipment and more people, but Air Force budget cuts precluded this.  Moral support was free but they didn’t get this either.

When the Korean War started, Project Twinkle silently died, along with official interest in green fireballs.

When I organized Project Blue Book in the summer of 1951 I’d never heard of a green fireball.  We had a few files marked “Los Alamos Conference,” “Fireballs,” “Project Twinkle,” etc., but I didn’t pay any attention to them.

Then one day I was at a meeting in Los Angeles with several other officers from ATIC, and was introduced to Dr. Joseph Kaplan.  When he found we were from ATIC, his first question was, “What ever happened to the green fireballs?” None of us had ever heard of them, so he quickly gave us the story.  He and I ended up discussing green fireballs.  He mentioned Dr. La Paz and his opinion that the green fireballs might be man-made, and although he respected La Paz’s professional ability, he just wasn’t convinced.  But he did strongly urge me to get in touch with Dr. La Paz and hear his side of the story.

When I returned to ATIC I spent several days digging into our collection of green fireball reports.  All of these reports covered a period from early December 1948 to 1949.  As far as Blue Book’s files were concerned, there hadn’t been a green fireball report for a year and a half.

I read over the report on Project Twinkle and the few notes we had on the Los Alamos Conference, and decided that the next time I went to Albuquerque I’d contact Dr. La Paz.  I did go to Albuquerque several times but my visits were always short and I was always in a hurry so I didn’t get to see him.