PROJECT BLUE BOOK

PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD

12. CONCLUSIONS

Wes Balloon
Probably Balloon
Pessidly Balloon

Was Aircraft
Probably Aircraft
Possibly Aircraft

1. DATE 2. LOCATION

24 Jul 58 Las Cruces, New Mexico
3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION

Lect 827 Mount Time _ Mount Time R Ground- Vi sual
0 Air Vi sual

O Ground-Readar
0 Air-intercept Rador

( Wes Astronomical \ioteor
Probably Astronomical
Possibly Astronomical

7”

Astronomer

7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION &. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE eee
Insufficient Dota for Evaluation
Unknown
Secs s =

BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS

Extremely bright obj -5 or -6 mag (w/ Confirmed meteor sighting.
‘J4dgr tail) obsvd by leading astronomer
cover arc fm 320dgr azimuth 35dgr alt
to 100dgr azimuth 20dgr alt. Travel
thus Sdgr per second, almost too slow

for meteor,

| ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52)

» th» m?

Dr. ea oe Auguet 7, 1958.

Report of Unidentified Objects

, i, Sided tn Hesehbornoed of Berwmda on Jury 15,1258
: (per U.S.A.F, Headquarters Wire of July 15)

- These objects were quite possibly fireballs or meteors
(out which, would depend on sise and brightness which are not
+ ™ “Ges0ribed). If they were large objectsa, they could be firebalis
“ @md, while it would be remarkable that so many fireballs could ve
geen in such a short apace of time (ten in half an hour), it is
not suteice the bounds of possibility.

_. heir varied and sometimes opposite directions would, of
course, rule oit any chanoe of them being connected with any
, single normal artificial satellite,

val : It may be interesting to note thaty we have three other :
; ag A reliable reports of somewhat similar unidentified objects,
. @8 Pallowst | , |

él ‘com =——S> Las Cruces, ¥.N July 25 0 a ae
¥ diogss Portand, Oregon August i 08 3
: - Chapek Hill, H.C. August & 01 15

Gelor was rot mentioned in the Las Cruces cese. The Portlend
objeet changed from white to red and was almost one-fourth of the
moon in sise. The Chapel dill objeat waa oneetenth of tho moon's

@iquster and hed a large orange tail. Ail were travelling in a
more or -ess easterly direction. ..

——_— — «22 q>--e
® .

" Alec of interest, for whatever the coincidence may be worth,
! © @@ the fact that the two time interfsvals between the last

' « * Bermuda westetoeeast sighting, and the Las Cruces and Portland .

. observations, have 8s comwron denominator, or cozmuon basic period,
of nbout 315 minuten, Tre Chapel Hill sirhting can also bs
4ncoluded in thio time srouping if we use cne-third of this period,
nancly, 115 cinutos, as the cowzon basic period for all throe
intervals. (N.Be the Portland sighting time is only very

/  epproxizate). | |
| , 3 : a wht

= wen we

er Pagid Lor’ ee ts

Scientia ares sellnennsteoeeeetent tens a emenstiteeerasnnenisienesiononmnpnanneenmamninimmsenmmnmmeneemnenmmenemmutiaadiiamme ee ~~”?
die ca aaah | ago~ 3427 0T (2¢ bee)

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY

SECTION OF UPPER ATMOSPHERE STUDIES
IGY OPTICAL SATELLITE TRACKING PROGRAM

60 GARDEN STREET
CAMBRIDGE 36, MASSACHUSETTS

July 29, 1958
(dictated on
July 26,1958)

Captain George T. Gregory

Air Technical Intelligence Center
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
P, 0. Box 9703

Dayton, Ohio

Dear Captain:

I am on the eve of my departure for Moscow, and I am taking
the liberty of enclosing m itinerary so that you will lmnow wheve
I am and, if necessary, can get in touch with mé at these places,

I honestly don't licnow which of the alternatives to give
greater weight to. ‘While the artificial metcor nynothesis is cocr-
tainly a possibility, I do not favor it myself very much, I thin'<
really it was a slow meteor, especially since it was observed in

the early evening.

Apropos of that, br. SP “2 130° me just yesterday to
report an extremely bright object. The data on this is as fol-
lows: 3:27 UT (Zebra) July 25, 1958; 8:27 Mountain Time. An ex-
tremely bright object about minus 5 or minus 6 (that is much
brighter than any of the planets) with a four degree long tail and
emitting sparks as it went along, was first sished at Azimth 320
degrees anc altitude 55 and traversed 100 or so degrees in a great
circle to about 100 degrees Azimuth and 20 degrees altitude, It
covered the 100 degrees in about 20 seconds, thus giving 5 degrees
per second, Dr. seid a reputable astronomer says that in
his opinion it was not a meteor, but again it is a borderline case,
It is tg0 fast for a satellite unless the object were a foreign
object on its way down. For instance if the object were 20 miles
high, it was travelling at 2.7 miles per second. Several people
saw it so there's no question of confirmation,

woe lee -_—-—- —_

I'll admit that calling everything a bright meteor is a very
handy thing to do but, until we have definite evidence that it is
something else, I would still rather favor that explanation. How-
ever, we should keep a list (and we are doing so here) of all these
very bright, slow-moving objects, because intelligence data at a
later date may reveal that some strange things were up there, It

4 f [Semen 4) 0.4, /

° pent ow LT ers