(meteorobs) Re: Webster County, Missouri Bolide

[CHRISTINECissy at aol.com]

Dear All,

I found more to this story with additional witness/contact names.

Chris
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Published June 19, 2004 

'It was loud enough to shake the house'
NASA suspects meteor in Webster County's big boom.


By Wes Johnson
News-Leader

Paul Kesterson was getting ready for work Friday morning when two thunderous 
explosions a split second apart rocked the sky above his home. 
"It was loud enough to shake the house and rattle the windows," said 
Kesterson, owner of Marshfield TV and Electronics. "The dog's probably still hiding." 
The rural Webster County man rushed outside, not sure what he'd find. 
"There was a smoke trail in the sky, but it wasn't straight," he said. "It 
kind of came down at an angle, like a jet contrail that the wind had distorted." 
The Webster County Sheriff's Department fielded nearly 20 phone calls from 
area residents around 9:20 a.m., concerned something had blown up. 
Dispatchers checked with area quarries, which reported no blasting activity. 
And no supersonic aircraft were in the skies above Webster County, according 
to Springfield airport and Fort Leonard Wood officials. 
NASA scientist Mike Mumma said the likely culprit was a "sizable" meteor 
ripping apart as it blasted through the atmosphere at 100,000 mph. 
"From the description of buildings and windows shaking, that's a fairly 
significant sonic boom," said Mumma, chief scientist of planetary research at 
Goddard Research Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It would have been much larger than 
fist-sized to make that loud of a noise and generate that much energy. I couldn't 
speculate how big, though." 
Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object monitoring program in 
Pasadena, Calif., said a meteor that shakes homes and windows could have been the 
size of a small car. 
"Statistically we can expect something that size twice a year, on average," 
he said. "Of course, most of the Earth's surface is ocean so we don't see them 
that often. Yours is a very unusual event." 
Webster County Sheriff's Capt. Robert Brown said the explosion shook the 
upper floors of the courthouse. 
The county's Emergency Management director was contacted, and the courthouse 
was checked to make sure it was secure, he said. 
"We were on standby ready to go if anything really had happened," Brown said. 
At the Marshfield Chevrolet Olds dealership, receptionist Lynn Bays said she 
heard a "big, loud explosion" while sitting at her desk. 
"At first I thought it was a big bolt of lightning, but a lot louder," she 
said. "It was pretty wild." 
Rebecca Tucker, owner of Marshfield Beauty Shop, said the blast sounded "just 
like a big sonic boom." 
"I talked to my mother, and she said it really rattled her garage door," 
Tucker said. 
Mumma said those kinds of reports — without the presence of supersonic 
aircraft — are consistent with a meteor hitting the atmosphere. 
"An explosion like that usually occurs when a pressure wave builds up on the 
front face of the meteor,' he said. "Eventually it blows up into millions of 
pieces which burn up before they hit the ground." 
Kesterson's description of hearing two sonic booms wasn't unusual, he said. 
"That could have been a binary object coming in — two meteors traveling 
together in space," Mumma said. "Each one would have generated a sonic boom as it 
entered the atmosphere." 
On June 4, Seattle residents got a spectacular view of a meteor breaking 
apart. 
The meteor lit up the sky at 2:40 a.m., and its brilliant glow was captured 
on dozens of security cameras across the city. 
It exploded about 27 miles above Snohomish, Wash., its thunderous blast 
registering on many area earthquake detectors. 
Based on eyewitness accounts and data from the earthquake monitors, officials 
estimated the Washington meteor's size to be about the size of a computer 
video monitor. 
Oliver Manuel, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of 
Missouri-Rolla, said it would be a fluke if anyone in Webster County found a piece of 
Friday's meteor. 
The area is rocky and covered by forests, both of which would make finding a 
meteor fragment difficult. 
"Hopefully there will be some meteorite fragments found," he said. "A common 
misconception is that they're too hot to pick up. But meteors ablate when they 
come in — their surface melts off faster than it can heat the object. If you 
find one, you can pick it up." 
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