PURSUE Record · Release 02

DOW-UAP-D017

Agency: Department of War · Type: Document · Date: 1948–1950 · Location: Sandia Base, New Mexico · Status: Unresolved

Official description

General correspondence and security reports detailing repeated UAP sightings at Sandia Base, a critical nuclear weapons assembly installation, between 1948 and 1950. The records describe 'green fireballs', unidentified aerial lights and high-speed maneuvers by unknown objects over highly sensitive strategic sites.

Curator's note

The founding document of the nuclear-UAP correlation, and the best-provenanced paper in the archive: 116 pages of internal security correspondence — officers writing to their chain of command, never intended for the public — documenting 209 sightings around the nation's primary weapons assembly site from 1948 to 1950. The green fireballs that dominate the file were a real government headache of the era, serious enough to trigger the Air Force's Project Twinkle in 1949; this file adds the perimeter-security view of that same sky. Note the tone as you read: the authors are not promoting a mystery, they are irritated by one, complaining that interceptors can't catch the things over the weapon storage areas. Contemporaneous, institutional, and unresolved for 75 years — this is what a strong historical record looks like.

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The record above is an official U.S. Government work served from war.gov/UFO. Curation and notes are independent. Not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the United States Government.