Los Alamos was the site of the Manhattan Project and, in 1949, hosted a classified conference convened to address a wave of unexplained sightings over the United States’ nuclear weapon sites1 — the 1949 Los Alamos classified conference on unexplained sightings over nuclear sites. Local correspondence also documents an earlier series of aerial sightings, the 1948-1951 Los Alamos green light sightings, and the town recurs in later testimony connecting its wartime laboratory to reputed classified research.
According to an anonymous letter sent to physicist James L. Tuck on 1970-11-23, several sightings of green lights were reported at Los Alamos between 1948 and 19512. The correspondent recalled one occasion when five objects were seen flying over the town in the afternoon3, moving from southeast to northwest in what appeared to be formation4, and suggested that members of the Los Alamos Protective Force Headquarters who served on “the Hill” during the early 1950s would recall the sightings5.
In a letter dated 1950-05-19 to Eleanor Roosevelt, J. Robert Oppenheimer recounted that shortly before the Trinity nuclear test, staff at Los Alamos were in a state of tension, and one morning almost the whole project staff went outdoors to observe a bright object in the sky through binoculars and other optical instruments6. He wrote that USA, New Mexico, Kirtland Field reported to Los Alamos that it had no interceptors able to come within range of the object7, and that the director of personnel at Los Alamos, an astronomer, eventually asked whether they could stop trying to shoot down Venus8.
George Knapp has rebutted official denials that Bob Lazar ever worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, citing an old news story placing Lazar there and Lazar’s familiarity with the site and its workers, after Lazar reportedly brought Knapp into the secure facility9. Lazar has speculated that, if anyone influenced his subsequent hiring at USA, Nevada, S4, it was Edward Teller, who he believes told someone to give the young man from Los Alamos a chance10.
David Fravor has recounted that a propulsion expert recruited into the programme he describes had, at the time, been working at Los Alamos11. The town has also hosted more conventional scientific activity, including the Pajarito Astronomers organisation, based at P.O. Box 1092, Los Alamos, New Mexico 8754412.