Sandia, New Mexico: 209 'green orbs, discs, and fireballs' over a nuclear-weapons facility

The Sandia, New Mexico file is a 116-page joint compilation from the U.S. Air Force and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Program (AFSWP) — the immediate post-Manhattan-Project Department of War organization with custodial responsibility for the U.S. nuclear-weapons stockpile. The file documents 209 separate sightings of 'green orbs,' discs, and fireballs maneuvering near the Sandia, New Mexico nuclear-weapons installation between 1948 and 1950.

Sandia in this period housed the nuclear-weapons assembly and storage activities that AFSWP had inherited from the Manhattan Engineer District. The 209 reports — a substantial volume of activity over a single sensitive site, in a single ~28-month window — are corroborated by USAF interceptor scrambles, ground-observer reports from military and civilian witnesses, and at least one reference to recovered copper powder at sighting sites.

Together with the 'foo fighter' record (1944-1945), the Oak Ridge nuclear-facility overflight reports from FBI 62-HQ-83894 (the headline of PURSUE Release 01), and the 1967 Malmstrom AFB Minuteman-shutdown incident, the Sandia file fills out a now-extensively-documented historical pattern: from the earliest days of the U.S. nuclear program, unidentified aerial activity has clustered over the most sensitive nuclear sites. Release 02 is the first time the full Sandia file has appeared in the unclassified public record at this density.