[meteorite-list] a June sighting

From: Dana L. Hawn <zeus_daughter2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Jun 24 21:36:35 2006
Message-ID: <20060624204007.76306.qmail_at_web50105.mail.yahoo.com>

RONA JOHNSON COLUMN: Fireball sightings stretch to Wyoming On June 2, Dayne LaHooe was driving on a gravel road through Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming when something caught his eye.
  "It was the most spectacular thing I've ever seen - I have never seen anything like it before," he said. LaHooe called after he read my June 10 column in the Herald about the fireball that streaked across the sky June 2.
  "It shot across the sky and looked like it landed right behind the Tetons," he said.
  LaHooe, who works in Jackson Hole, Wyo., figured it was about 9:30 p.m., because the stars hadn't even come out yet.
  He didn't say much to anyone about it because he thought they wouldn't believe him. But he did tell his girlfriend and her father. Then, as luck would have it, his girlfriend's father, who lives in the Twin Cities, was driving through this area and somehow came across my column and sent it to LaHooe.
  From Minnesota
  Errol and Chris Johnson, who are from Chewelah, Wash., were in Roseau, Minn., on June 2. They were celebrating Errol's uncle Glen Johnson's 86th birthday. It was about 11:30 p.m. and Errol and about five other family members were sitting in the breezeway of his uncle's home when they heard some distant booming noises.
  "My wife said it sounded like a baseball bat hitting the side of the house - like a sonic boom, I thought," he said. Johnson decided to go outside to see if there was anything going on.
  "Almost immediately, I saw two large fireballs with tails fly by, moving from the south-southeast as they appeared to descend to the north," Errol said.
  He called to the other family members to come, but the meteor was out of range by the time they got outside.
  Johnson and his wife didn't hear anything more about the fireball until after they had returned to Washington.
  "My aunt and uncle sent a thank you card and they sent along your article," he said. That's when Johnson called me.
  Using Google Earth, Johnson was able to find the exact longitude and latitude of where he was standing when he saw the fireballs, which were 48 degrees, 50 minutes, 34.68 seconds north latitude and 95 degrees, 45 minutes, 38.84 seconds west longitude.
  "As far as the angle off of the horizon, I am thinking I had to be looking up about 60 to 75 degrees as I looked directly east," he said.
  Over in N.D.
  At the same time that Johnson saw the fireball, Leann Weber was in a tractor cultivating a field about 3 miles north of Cando, N.D. It was about midnight and there was no moon.
  "All of a sudden, the sky just lit up," Weber said.
  She said the fireball stayed in the sky for about a minute.
  "As it was falling, you could see debris coming off it and it started breaking apart," she said. "I've never seen anything like it, and probably will never see any like it again. I guess it's a good reason to keep cultivating late at night."
  Weber, who works at the Herald as a copy editor, was reminded of the sighting when she was reading my column the night before it appeared in the Herald.
  If you read my column June 10, you know that I was sitting in University Park in Grand Forks during the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life when I saw the fireball.
  It's fun to hear from people who saw the fireball, but I still haven't received any photos - hint, hint. And it would be really cool to find out if anyone has found any pieces of the meteorite.
  I have to apologize to anyone who has been trying to e-mail me lately. My e-mail address has been missing an "r" for the last month and wasn't caught until this last week. I haven't been ignoring your e-mails, I just haven't received them.

                         
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Received on Sat 24 Jun 2006 04:40:07 PM PDT