A-83-001-Z-1: Correspondence regarding UFO sightings at Los Alamos, 1948-1951

This source is a correspondence record concerning the 1948-1951 Los Alamos green light sightings in Los Alamos. According to the record, an anonymous correspondent wrote to James L. Tuck on 1970-11-23, reporting several sightings between 1948 and 1951.¹ The correspondent said that the green lights usually appeared between 21:00 and 23:00² and usually occurred in the USA, New Mexico, Jemez Mountains.³ Several instances were recalled in which the lights appeared to weave in and out of mountain peaks.⁴ The account therefore preserves a retrospective description of unusual aerial observations associated with the Los Alamos area, while identifying the correspondent rather than the original observers only by anonymity.

The correspondence also records a possible administrative trail. According to the source record, the sightings were reported to Los Alamos Protective Force Headquarters, and should have been recorded in its logs.⁵ The correspondent additionally recalled one afternoon observation of five objects flying over Los Alamos⁶; the objects were said to travel from south-east to north-west and to appear in formation.⁷ The letter suggested that members of the Protective Force who had been on the Hill during the early 1950s might remember the reports.⁸ In a related administrative passage, James L. Tuck wrote on 1970-12-16 to the U.S. Army Engineering School Department of Mechanical and Technical Equipment at the U.S. Army Engineering School in USA, Virginia, Fort Belvoir, requesting a recipe for simulated atomic bomb demonstrations after a telephone conversation.⁹

The record places the sightings alongside Tuck’s reported interest in ball lightning: according to the source, he wrote a report on the subject.¹⁰ It also notes that James M. McCampbell was described by the anonymous correspondent as a UFO believer.¹¹ A copy of UFOLOGY (1976, McCampbell) was recorded on the new non-fiction shelf at Mesa Public Library, with call number 629.1338 M125u.¹² Finally, the correspondent considered McCampbell’s “Flight and Propulsion” chapter relevant to Albert Einstein and unified field theory.¹³ These associated notes show that the source combines reported sighting details with correspondence about technical subjects and UFO literature.