[meteorite-list] "Possible meteorite" found in Newport, Arkansas Area

From: Paul H. <oxytropidoceras_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2011 6:58:01 -0500
Message-ID: <20110602075801.F42E7.644271.imail_at_eastrmwml46>

In ?"Possible meteorite" found in Newport, Arkansas Area?,
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2011-June/077048.html ,
McCartney Taylor wrote,

?The reporter confirmed that the confirmation of a meteorwrong
won't make the paper.?

Unfortunately, this is typical of newspapers in general. Newspapers
love to write articles about some spectacular claim of either some
discovery or finding. Then, when the claim is discredited as being
completely wrong, the newspaper commonly ignores it because
the truth of the matter is quite boring.

My favorite example is a reported by the now defunct ?State Times,?
of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which reported on January 9, 1951, that
the bones of a 11-foot Neanderthal Man was found in a gravel pit
in Sicily Island. The Baton Rouge ?Morning Advocate? reported on
January 9, 1951 that a ?... gravel contractor unearthed parts of a
human skeleton 35 feet from the surface of the ground...? in a
Sicily Island gravel pit . As documented in (Arata and Harmann,
1966), these fossils were later examined by vertebrate
paleontologists and found to be the bones of a Pleistocene bear.
Nothing appeared in either paper about this finding.

Therefore, a person has to be careful of reports of meteorite
finds and other spectacular discoveries reported in newspaper.

References cited:

Arata, A. A., and G. L. Harmann. 1966, Fossil Ursus reported as
early man in Louisiana. Tulane Studies in Geology. vol.. 4, no. 2,
pp. 75-77

Yours,

Paul H.
Received on Thu 02 Jun 2011 07:58:01 AM PDT