[meteorite-list] Warning to armchair fireball chasers

From: MeteorHntr at aol.com <MeteorHntr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:27:31 EDT
Message-ID: <d5a.4addd7f2.37889bc3_at_aol.com>

Hey All,

I wanted to add something here. As noted in the Baltimore Sun story
today, Mike Hankey was quoted that a lot of people were contacting him by phone
about the photo he captured of the fireball.

I spent a couple hours with Mike at his house and at his scope, and he is
really a great guy. Excited that his hobby of just 6 months produced such
a lucky outcome, he was on one hand glad that people appreciate his
results.

On the other hand, he was starting to notice a pattern when talking with
people, that while they wanted to extract information from him, they all to
often were trying to hint that he shouldn't share this same information
with others that might ask later. At least one had boldly asked him not to
share it with anyone else.

He told me that there was an offer of "official recognition" made if a
meteorite turned up, due to his cooperation with them AND if he didn't
cooperate with others. He asked me in an email, if maybe the meteorite might be
able to be named after him if it was found. Now, I am not sure if such a
"bribe" was actually offered to him, or if his ego was maybe puffed up a
bit by being made to think that his contribution to some of us really made
him important enough to warrant the rock being named after him? Maybe he
came up with that on his own, or maybe the idea was planted with him.

My caution to those of you working the phones, it is NOT just those of us
in the field that say and do things that affect the stories that go to
print. Mike was impacted by what he was getting from emails and phone calls
from others enough to comment to me, and to comment to the reporter, who did
end up writing about it.

Sometimes it is easy for our guard to be let down, that if we are not
talking directly to a reporter, that what we are saying will just stay between
us and the person we are talking to. We saw today that this is not always
the case.

We saw in Buzzard Coulee, West and Georgia how people can offer cash
rewards to buy rocks from their home, not from the field, and how that can also
affect the stories in the papers.

I am not being overly critical here, I just wanted people to know that
many things influence a story that goes to print, not just what is said in
interviews by people on the ground.

Steve Arnold
of Meteorite Men

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Received on Fri 10 Jul 2009 09:27:31 AM PDT