Anthony Mirarchi's challenge to the balloon explanation
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
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| Type | Event (public dispute) |
|---|---|
| Date | 25–26 February 1951 (Associated Press interviews) |
| Place | Scituate, Massachusetts |
| Person | Dr. Anthony O. Mirarchi, former Air Force scientist, Geophysical Research Division, Watertown |
| Target | Dr. Urner Liddel, Office of Naval Research, Look magazine, February 1951 |
| Mirarchi's view | Green fireballs showed "maneuvered motion"; possible foreign missiles; "a worse Pearl Harbor" |
| Related project | Project Twinkle (1950–51), final report 27 November 1951 |
| Topics | Government programs (topic) |
| People | Anthony Mirarchi, Lincoln LaPaz, Urner Liddel |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 42 |
| Year | 1951 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1951 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 11 |
Anthony O. Mirarchi was a scientist at the U.S. Air Force's geophysical research organisation. As an assistant branch chief, he studied reports of the "green fireballs" seen over New Mexico's atomic sites in 1948–1950. In February 1951, after leaving government service, he publicly attacked a Navy scientist's claim that flying saucers were all research balloons. He warned that if the objects were foreign missiles they could lead to "a worse Pearl Harbor than we have ever experienced". The Air Force project set up to study the fireballs, Project Twinkle, ended later that year with essentially negative findings.[1][2][3]
The green fireballs
From late 1948, bright green fireballs were reported over sensitive sites in New Mexico, including Los Alamos and Sandia Base. Many of the witnesses were trained scientists, pilots and security staff. On 5 December 1948 two aircrews, one civilian and one military, described "a huge green meteor". In January 1949 an Army intelligence director in Texas wrote that the fireballs might be "the result of radiological warfare experiments by a foreign power". The meteor expert Lincoln LaPaz, head of the University of New Mexico's Institute of Meteoritics, saw one himself on 12 December 1948. He argued that the fireballs did not behave like normal meteors, and with Edward Teller judged them "deserving of serious consideration". Captain Edward Ruppelt later wrote that, whatever they were, they were "playing around in one of the most sensitive security areas in the United States".[4][6][8][9]
On 14 October 1949 a conference at Los Alamos concluded that instrumental observations were essential. Mirarchi studied hundreds of eyewitness reports, in files the AP described as those of the "office of strategic information"; one AP report put the number at more than 300. He recommended a "considerable appropriation" for a full study. In early 1950 the Air Force's Geophysics Research Division set up Project Twinkle to photograph and measure the phenomena.[1][2][3]
The balloon explanation
In February 1951 Look magazine published an article by Dr. Urner Liddel, chief of the nuclear physics branch of the Office of Naval Research. He said that essentially all credible saucer reports were the Navy's giant "Skyhook" cosmic-ray research balloons, first used in 1947, about when the discs were first sighted. He said the balloons were 100 feet across and rose to 19 miles, where winds could carry them at 200 mph, and that sunlight at dusk lit their undersides into saucer shapes. He said 2,000 reports had been checked and that, of the reliable ones, "there is not a single … observation which is not attributable to the cosmic balloons". He said the balloons had been kept secret because the project was connected with atomic developments.[2]
The 1951 interview
In an Associated Press interview at Scituate, Massachusetts, on 25 February 1951, Mirarchi called the Navy report erroneous. "The navy report is erroneous, it lulls people into a false sense of security," he said. Reports describe him either as an air chemist and assistant chief of a branch of the Geophysical Research Organization, or as chief of its atmospheric composition bureau in Watertown. He said the objects he had studied had "maneuvered motion" unlike meteors or drifting balloons, fitted "a missile programmed in advance", and had been seen in "a certain region of New Mexico which is critical to the national interest". "We cannot exclude the possibility that the so-called flying saucer is the result of experiments by a potential enemy of the United States," he said. "If they were launched by a foreign power, then they could lead to a worse Pearl Harbor than we have ever experienced." He urged that radar, photographic and spotter tracking posts be set up. He said Liddel's balloons might explain some reports but "does not tell the whole story". An Air Force spokesman replied that "in over 500 investigations we have made so far we have yet to find one concrete bit of evidence". He added that study was continuing at Wright-Patterson under Colonel Harold E. Watson.[1][2][10]
Project Twinkle's end
Twinkle struggled to obtain usable data. Askania tracking cameras were operated by the contractor Land-Air at Vaughn and then Holloman Air Force Base from April 1950 to March 1951. Simultaneous sightings by both cameras were never made, and the spectrum-grating cameras rarely ran because their operators were withdrawn for the Korean War. A planned $50,000-a-year electromagnetic monitoring effort was dropped. The final report, by Louis Elterman and dated 27 November 1951, called the findings "essentially negative". It said there was "no indication that even the somewhat strange observations often called 'Green Fireballs' are anything but natural phenomena". It recommended spending no more money, and the project was put on standby at Holloman. LaPaz still told the investigators that the fireballs' recent origin and peculiar trajectories did not permit them to be classed as natural. Mirarchi's outspokenness reportedly drew a security investigation, but this is not documented in the published sources.[3][4][5][7][11]
People and topics
- Project Twinkle — A 1949–51 Air Force effort to photograph the green fireballs over New Mexico.
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Anthony Mirarchi — Air Force scientist behind Project Twinkle who publicly challenged the balloon explanation in 1951.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Los Alamos National Laboratory — The New Mexico laboratory where the atomic bomb was designed.
- Sandia National Laboratories — A U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory in Albuquerque.
- Lincoln LaPaz — Meteor expert who argued the 1948–49 green fireballs over New Mexico were not ordinary meteors.
- Urner Liddel — Office of Naval Research physicist who said in 1951 that Skyhook balloons explained saucer reports.
On the Timeline
- Urner Liddel's Skyhook balloon explanation (27 February 1951) — A Navy physicist publicly says all UAP reports are mirages or balloons.
- Project Winterhaven (1952) — Physicist Thomas Townsend Brown proposes Project Winterhaven, a military study of electrogravitic propulsion.
See every 1951 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- UFO files — FBI Vault · vault.fbi.gov · archived copy
References
- "Scientist sees peril in 'saucers'", AP (26 Feb 1951), NICAP · nicap.org · archived copy
- "1951 newspaper and magazine items", Project 1947 · mail.project1947.com · archived copy
- Project Twinkle final report (27 Nov 1951), Project 1947 · mail.project1947.com · archived copy
- Green fireballs — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Green fireballs and Project Twinkle — Bruce Maccabee, NICAP · nicap.org · archived copy
- Green fireballs — Wikipedia · en.Wikipedia.com · archived copy
- Project Twinkle report, Nov 1951 — UFOScans · ufoscans.com · archived copy
- Ruppelt, 'The Report on UFOs,' chapter 4 (green fireballs) — Wikisource · en.wikisource.org · archived copy
- Dr. LaPaz and the mystery of the green fireballs — Liberation Times · liberationtimes.squarespace.com · archived copy
- newspapers.com · newspapers.com · archived copy
- sohp.us · sohp.us · archived copy
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Green fireballs”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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