Novo México e Texas, 1949: a grande bola de fogo de 30 de janeiro, vista por milhares, cruza 143 milhas do céu sem estrondo

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, ALBUQUERQUE. Institute of Meteoritics. February 21, 1949. TO: Lt Colonel Doyle Rees, Commanding Officer, District No. 17, Office of Special Investigations. From: Lincoln LaPaz, Director, Institute of Meteoritics. Subject: Anomalous luminous phenomena (4th report). 1. Several additional sightings of unexplained aerial light phenomena have occurred since the third report in this series was prepared. Outstanding among the as yet undescribed incidents was the green fireball of Sunday evening, January 30, 1949, 5:54 p.m. MST. Within less than one minute after the appearance of the fireball, an eyewitness (Mr. Nesbett) called to report the impression of a group of persons who saw the fireball through an east window while seated about the dinner table in a brightly lighted room. Within two hours after the fireball appeared, more than 100 eyewitness accounts had been obtained by its director through personal interviews. An unusually high percentage of the reports came from military personnel (waiting out under the sky for Post Theaters to open), from guards and other special agents already alerted to watch for anomalous luminous phenomena and from airplane pilots, control tower men and oilwell workers working on the late afternoon to midnight shift. 2. On February 1st, a staff car was placed at the writer's disposal by Major William Godsoe of the Fourth Army and a field survey was begun of the region in New Mexico and Texas in which the majority of the observer's reporting the fall lived. This survey, carried out under unusually severe weather conditions, included visits to the following localities: Moriarty, Estancia, Vaughn, Ramon, Mesa, Roswell, Caprock, Tatum and other towns in New Mexico; and Lamesa, Brownfield, Plains, Lubbock, Muleshoe and other towns in Texas. (Several of these towns were visited two or more times.) At Roswell, where very effective cooperation was provided by the OSI group at Walker Air Base under Lt Paul Ryan, and the local CAP unit under Lt H. K. Cobean, Special Agent Bill Ricket was added to the survey party and gave much aid in later work. At Lamesa, Texas, the ground survey party was joined by an air search party consisting of Major Charles Phillips, USAF, Captain Melvin E. Neef and Special Agent Jack L. Boling, from the 17th District OSI office at Kirtland Field, and Corporal Cochran. On February 4th, the four persons just named flew a low-level air reconnaissance mission in a T-11 aircraft over the area surrounding the earth-point of the fireball of January 30th. At the same time a second ground survey party under Lt Paul Ryan made a careful field search along a route extending from Lamesa through Amherst, Texas, to Clovis, New Me[xico].

3. As a result of the ground and air searches referred to above, and of an analysis of the very large amount of information obtained from eyewitnesses by personal interviews, by telephone conversations and by letter, it has now (three weeks after the fall) become clear that several thousand persons in New Mexico and Texas saw this great fireball leisurely traverse the sky. It has been possible to determine that the January 30th fireball became visible at an altitude of approximately twelve miles over a point at latitude 34° [cut], longitude 102° 5', and disappeared at an altitude of approximately eight mi[les] over a point at latitude 32° 48', longitude 102° 22', after traversing a nearly horizontal path approximately 143 miles long at a velocity of from s[...] to fourteen miles per second. Although the January 30th fireball must be [among] the brightest observed in the last quarter-century, and in spite of the fact that its real path lay closer to the earth throughout its entire extent than any other meteorite path of which the writer has knowledge (excepting the anomalous green fireballs of December 12th and 20th, 1948), the meteoritic detonations and long continued rumblings which without exception accompany large meteorite falls were not observed on January 30th by anyone in the very large region covered by the various ground surveys. However, what may have been Udden noises (anomalous whizzing and hissing sounds frequently reported by very distant observers as having been heard at the same time that a meteoritic fireball was seen) were heard at Roswell, New Mexico, and near Muleshoe, Texas. 4. In addition to the absence of noise anomaly referred to in the last paragraph, the fireball of January 30th, 1949, shows several other features (e.g. nearly horizontal path, absence of long enduring luminous train or dust clouds, North to South direction, etc) characteristic of the green fireballs earlier described in this series of reports. However, the January 30th fireball was much brighter than any of those earlier reported and differed from other green fireballs in that many of the Texas observers who were situated nearest its path reported its color as blue, orange, red and even purple instead of green. 5. Up to the present time (February 21st), no evidence whatever supporting the belief that solid fragments fell to earth from the January 30th fireball has been discovered. However, as promptly as possible, a much more thorough ground search should be made in the probable area of fall as outlined by the earlier surveys, for, in my opinion, the fireball of January 30th is the only one of the anomalous luminous objects under investigation which gives any indication of having been a meteorite fall. 6. With the present report, the writer's participation in the OSI's investigation of the puzzling fireball question must, to his regret, terminate. During the time I was on leave of absence from the University of New Mexico, I was glad to donate my time and services to this investigation. Now that I am again serving as Head of the Department of Mathematics with a full time teaching load, it is impossible for me to continue cooperating with the OSI. LINCOLN LaPAZ, Head of Dept of Mathematics. 2

In the case of the January 30th fall, due to the fact that there had been a large number of military personnel alerted, we were able to obtain observations within a minute after the fall occurred and pursued the investigation over a distance of 1,600 miles - in Texas mud primarily! - in some ten days' time interviewing literally hundreds of people, we saw not one substantiated account of noise produced by the meteorite fall. [...] Hoyt and Bradbury: Wasn't that Sunday the 24th? Dr. LaPaz: No, it was definitely Sunday the 30th. [...] The center, as you see, of points of appearance is somewhere Southwest of Amarillo or South-southwest of Amarillo. The disappearance point is in the vicinity of Lubbock, Texas.

Captain Neef: This one of the 30th definitely was visible from White Sands because Commander Holloman ? and his wife and one of his assistants and his wife saw it from there. [...] Dr. Teller: How long was it? Dr. LaPaz: The first observations we had here indicated ..... That was because of errors in the determination of the azimuth at the point of beginning, made due to the faulty transit they used. But that's correct that the path runs over 100 miles. Dr. Teller: And how long does it take? Dr. LaPaz: Duration estimates range from 5 to around 14 seconds. I think that a 10 second average is about the best, that would give about 10 miles per second.