Why Do Glowing Green UFOs Keep Appearing Over New Mexico?

 Written By: Ken Hulsey

I've had the intriguing experience of seeing some unusual objects in the night skies over "The Land of Enchantment" multiple times. I even documented many of these sightings in an article I wrote back in 2010 called "Classic UFO Case - The Albuquerque Mystery Light - Circa 1980" (let’s just say my writing has probably improved since then!). In that article, I detailed two occasions when a massive orb hovered over Albuquerque. When I took a closer look with binoculars, I realized that this orb wasn’t just a single craft; it appeared to be a honeycomb-like cluster of lights. My best friend and I certainly weren’t alone in witnessing this phenomenon—local police, the Air Force, and the Albuquerque Journal were all flooded with calls from other eyewitnesses. Predictably, the official explanation was ... drumroll, please ... the planet Jupiter! At least we avoided the old "swamp gas" explanation. 

I also mentioned another sighting in my article—a giant spinning red fireball that zipped across the Albuquerque sky. I missed seeing that one by just a few minutes! I had stepped outside to find my friends in the street, all excited and shouting, "Did you see that? That was crazy!" It’s moments like these that really captivate the imagination!

Here are a few interesting sightings that came to my attention after I published my original article. They seem to support the idea that these unidentified objects might indeed be monitoring our military activities, specifically at Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque. 

A fascinating tidbit comes from my best friend’s brother, who worked for the US government as a photographer. He was involved in documenting classified tests at the base and mentioned witnessing what he described as a laser weapon capable of blowing up boulders. While he could have been trying to impress us, he's not known for spinning tall tales, so I tend to take his report seriously.

Additionally, there’s been long-standing speculation about a stockpile of nuclear warheads being stored in the nearby Sandia Mountains. It's easy to see why the authorities would keep such information under wraps, especially considering the size of Albuquerque, which has around 500,000 residents.

 Now, let’s dive into some of the reported encounters:

On August 8, 1980, at 11:50 PM MST, three Security Policemen on duty in Charlie Sector, on the east side of the Manzano Weapons Storage Area, noticed a very bright light moving swiftly before stopping suddenly over Coyote Canyon. Initially thinking it was a helicopter, they quickly realized it was doing some unusual aerial maneuvers that ruled out that possibility. They watched as the light landed in Coyote Canyon and, after a while, took off straight up at an impressive speed until it vanished from sight. 

The following day, August 9 at 12:20 AM MST, a Sandia Security Guard was driving along the Coyote Canyon access road for a routine check on an alarmed building. As he got closer, he saw a bright light near the ground behind the structure. His first thought was that it was a helicopter, but as he approached, he realized it was actually a round disk-shaped object. When he tried to call for backup, he discovered his radio was malfunctioning. Undeterred, he went closer on foot with a shotgun, at which point the object shot up vertically at a high speed.

On August 22, 1980, three more unnamed Security Guards reported seeing a light over Coyote Canyon acting similarly to the one from the 8th. This area is significant as it’s part of a large restricted test range used by the Air Force Weapons Laboratory and Sandia Laboratories. 

These sightings certainly raise intriguing questions and spark curiosity about what’s really happening above Kirtland Air Force Base!

In late February 1949, the Skyliner newspaper in Los Alamos, New Mexico, published an intriguing article about what were commonly known as “flying saucers.” They described some curious green lights appearing in the night sky: “Los Alamos now has flying green lights. These will-o’-the-wisps, generally spotted around 2 a.m., have caught the attention of local law enforcement, and there’s plenty of chatter about them in Santa Fe bars. However, local officials seem to have no official knowledge of these mysterious phenomena, each passing the responsibility to someone else.” The article playfully concluded with a question: “Have you seen a green light lately?” It turns out, many had, and the sightings continued, prompting TIME magazine to address the phenomenon in November 1951 with a feature titled “Great Balls of Fire.” 

What makes these reports of green lights in New Mexico during 1948 significant in UFO lore is the sheer number of sightings. This alone created quite the buzz! But even more concerning for the U.S. government was that many of these sightings occurred near sensitive locations like the Los Alamos and Sandia atomic weapons labs. Other important military sites, including radar stations and fighter-interceptor bases, were close by as well. This meant that sightings were being reported by pilots, weather observers, scientists, and defense personnel—usually level-headed folks—leading many to worry that these mysterious fireballs might even be Soviet spy devices.

On the night of December 5, 1948, something intriguing occurred in the skies. Two different airplane crews reported seeing a remarkable “green ball of fire” moving from west to east. In one instance, the fireball seemed to zoom directly toward one of the planes, prompting the startled pilot to veer away in a hurry. One pilot later shared a vivid description of the sight: “Imagine a soft ball coated with a fluorescent paint that glows bright green in the dark. Have someone throw that ball right at your face from about 100 feet away and 10 feet above you. That’s what a green fireball looks like.” 

Afterward, a team of intelligence officers, led by Dr. Lincoln LaPaz from the University of New Mexico’s Institute of Meteoritics, analyzed the fireball's trajectory and searched the area where a meteorite might have landed. Surprisingly, they found absolutely nothing—no bits of meteor debris, no craters, and no signs of fire. In fact, the unusual sightings kept occurring over the next few days, with reports on December 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 20th, and 28th.

The sighting on December 20th was particularly striking. The fireballs came crashing down from the sky at a 45-degree angle, only to suddenly level off and fly horizontally, defying gravity! Dr. LaPaz later noted in a letter to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations that “none of the green fireballs has a train of sparks or a dust cloud…” Over the years, more reports of these green fireballs have emerged from around the globe, stretching from Alberta in Canada all the way to South Africa. 

In June 2018, a green fireball even made an eye-catching appearance during a Foo Fighters concert in the Netherlands—a fitting coincidence, as the band’s name comes from the term used by U.S. pilots for UFOs during World War II! According to the International Meteor Organization, over 170 sightings of the fireballs were reported that night in at least five European countries, sparking ongoing curiosity and wonder about these mysterious lights in the sky.

Could it be Cold War espionage or could it be something out of this world? This intriguing mystery certainly wasn’t on the radar for residents in New Mexico back in 1948. After speaking with over a hundred witnesses, Dr. LaPaz shared his insights with the military and the Atomic Energy Commission, suggesting that these mysterious fireballs could have been secretive “unconventional defensive devices” being tested by the U.S. or even spying equipment from the Soviets. 

Fast forward to 1952 when Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations into UFOs, visited Los Alamos National Laboratory. He noticed that the scientists and technicians became quite animated when he mentioned the possibility of interplanetary vehicles. In his book, *The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects* (1953), Ruppelt mentioned that they had really given this a lot of thought and had a theory. They believed that the fireballs might actually be extraterrestrial probes sent from a “spaceship” hovering miles above Earth.

However, the official word from government investigators was that these green fireballs were merely some sort of natural phenomenon that had never been encountered before. As interest and investigations into these fireballs diminished with the onset of the Korean War, UFO researcher Jan Aldrich observed, “Just labeling them as natural phenomena didn’t really resolve the issue. It just pushed it aside.” Aldrich even linked the green fireballs to similar aerial sightings reported in Fort Hood, Texas, back in 1949.