[meteorite-list] Mystery Sighting

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:08:31 2004
Message-ID: <3D914AC7.658F2AD3_at_bhil.com>

Hi,

    OK, I'll bite and assume it's not a practical joke.

    First of all, there are centuries of observations of ice
falling to earth, often a contentious matter scientifically,
recently often explained as frozen toilet droppings from
airliners or "super hailstones." But there is also the
possibility of cometary ice fragments sucessfully making it to
the earth's surface. This would require a very shallow angle of
entry, which incidentally this story provides. Then, there's
Louis Frank's "mini-comets."
    A witness account so detailed lulls us into accepting all its
details at face value, but we should remember that it is nearly
impossible to estimate correctly the size, altitude, and velocity
of an unfamiliar aerial object briefly seen.
    If the "thing" were only 40 feet overhead to the observer and
traveling at 100 mph, it would be visible for less than a second,
yet the report says it "finally" disappeared over the treetops
after 8-10 seconds. That implies that 1500 feet of flight path
were observed.
    He says that it was visibly "dropping." It would have fallen
in the earth's gravity the 40 feet of altitude in less than 2
seconds, so it would have hit within 300 feet of the observer.
    If his estimates of weight were correct ("tons"), he could
hardly have failed to notice the 300,000 foot-pound impact.
(That's about the magnitude of a high-speed car crash, a pretty
noisy and noticable event.)
    A cone-shaped object in stable flight could NOT travel with
the flat end of the cone upwards in a vertical orientation. An
object the size of a two-car garage only 40 feet over your head
would span more than the 40 degrees of the human visual field, so
I have no reservations about rejecting the observer's estimates.
    Why should dark or black apparent masses imbedded in ice
necessarily be "rocks"? Why not discolored ice? Organic
contaminants? Or any of dozens of other items. At this juncture,
let me remind you of what frozen airliner toilet ejecta should
resemble, dark masses imbedded in ice, maybe?

    In a word, the whole account seems highly unlikely and
physically impossible as described. Of course, if you discount
the physical parameters suggested by the observer, that loosens
up the constraints but vagues up everything else.

    For falling ice fans, try this url:
<http://tierra.rediris.es/bloquesdehielo/> It's in English, or
was when I looked at it.


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

magellon wrote:

> Greetings All,
> What I am about to share with you is a daytime 'meteor'
> sighting by a credible witness.
> The sighting itself is well, "unusual" to say the least.
> However, I take the possibility of finding a new meteorite very
> serious.
> What I feel may be 'strange' in this narration, may be 'rooted
> in truth'
> to someone more experienced.
> I would appreciate any feedback that may lead to solving this
> mystery sighting or at least arriving at a reasonable
> conclusion.
> To conserve bandwidth, the narrative is located here:
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~magellon/ew.html
>
> Best,
> Ken Newton
> wrongs on ebay
Received on Wed 25 Sep 2002 01:33:59 AM PDT