[meteorite-list] Re: Nakhla - The Dead Dog Still Lives

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:52:09 2004
Message-ID: <200208091700.KAA00520_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

>
> There's nothing inherently wrong with re-posting a message, even one from a
> year or two ago, although it would be courteous to at least tell the
> l-members that it's an "old message".

The message was reposted since it countered each of your arguments for the
dog story, which incidently, you also reposted to the list.

You are, of course, free to come up with counter arguments.

> I'm not going to respond again to messages Ron sent years ago, all of those
> responses can be located in the archives.

You are, of course, free to not respond to come up with counter-arguments if you
are still unable to.
 
> Apparently it's too much to ask that Ron at least make his re-post current.
> Ron and I did work together for about a month last year and ultimately he
> changed the NASA website, often cited by Reuters/AP etc. as space gospel to
> reflect the reality.

You've wanted me to remove any mention of the dog story, but I do not believe
in censorship. Again, the story hasn't been sustantiated to be gospel, but you
are entitled to your opinion. Here's the wording that we mutually agreed to:

  A rain of 40 stones fell from the sky in 1911 near Nakhla in Egypt.
  The falls were preceded by an appearance of a cloud and detonations,
  frightening local residents. There is an eyewitness account that one of
  the fragments hit a dog. Efforts to substantiate the validity of the dog
  story almost a century later have been unsuccessful thus far, though the
  story hasn't been disproven either. The stones from this meteorite fall
  ranged in size from 20g to 1813g, and it is estimated a total weight of 10kg
  (22 pounds) had fallen.

>Ron, I "didn't prove that the dog didn't exist", as you
> claim (many, many folks have mentioned that in formal debate, it's impossible
> to "prove a double negative").

One would wonder why you've been trying to censor
any mention of the dog story from all literature and websites. That very story
alerted the science community about the Nakhla fall. I know you
are fond of the Nakhla fragment in your collection. If the dog story was
censored from the get go, there wouldn't be any Nakhla in your collection.

>I stated the substantial facts and conclusions
> found in the literature.

You've stated some of the facts, mainly the ones that may cast doubt on the
story. When I read your 1998 Meteorite! article, I was convinced the dog story
did not happen. In fact, that was the mindset I had when I first read both
Hume's and Ball's articles about the Nakhla meteorite. However, when I the
articles, I saw a number of substantial facts were not mentioned in your article.
The conclusion that the dog story is not true is your opinion.
I've presented facts from both sides of the issue - nothing should be suppressed.

Like I said, the dog story hasn't been proven or refuted with any real certainty. It
could still go either way.

Ron Baalke
Received on Fri 09 Aug 2002 01:00:03 PM PDT