(meteorobs) Any updates on this story USAF Fireball Reports

[MEM]

Mike, I believe that a suitable existing civilian agency to get this data would be the Meteoroids office of NASA and we should politic for that.  Getting them to take up the mission will be more difficult than pulling teeth.

One of the issues in the past was prior to dissemination the data had to be sanitized--"de-precisioned"-- if that is a word, such that the true capabilities of the sensors could not be inferred by foreign powers.

IIRC Peter Brown used to work for Los Alamos Labs(?) (and now is supposed to be semi retired but running a fireball working group out of Western Ontario University) and was cleared to do the downgrading necessary prior to release.IMO.   Speaking from a little background in the field, I'll bet we could compute the exact trajectory corridor through a 100m bullseye all the way to the 200 miles down to 3 were it necessary.

Elton
Here is one from meteorobs posted by Geo Zay:
(meteorobs) USAF FIREBALL RELEASE


To: meteorobs at latrade.com, astro at store-forward.mindspring.com, YPover at aol.com,         Skywayinc at aol.com 

Subject: (meteorobs) USAF FIREBALL RELEASE 

From: GeoZay at aol.com 

Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 21:27:58 -0400 (EDT) 

Reply-To: meteorobs at latrade.com 

Sender: owner-meteorobs 


I received this from Peter Brown today...some of you might find this
interesting?
George Zay
--------------------

 USAF NEWS RELEASE 
  
 From:   Headquarters Air Force Technical Applications Center    
         Office of Public Affairs             
         Patrick AFB, Fl., 
         32925-3002 
         (407)-494-7332 
  
 Date: May 6, 1997 
  
 ****************************************************************************

  
 At 19:54:26 UT on Dec. 9, 1995, sensors aboard U.S. Department of 
 Defense satellites recorded a bright atmospheric flash.  Although 
 precise location of the flash has not yet been determined, time of the 
 flash and general location is consistent with eyewitness reports of a 
 bright explosive flash in the Cuernca, Ecuador, area at 14:51 local time 
 (19:51 UT) on that day.  Those observations consisted of a bright 
 fireball streaking across the sky from north to south, ending in a 
 bright flash and loud explosive noise. Three commercial seismic stations 
 in the area also recorded strong signals at that time. 
  
 Assuming a 6000K blackbody radiating spectrum, estimates of the peak 
 radiated power and total radiated energy of the flash are 5.4 x 10^10 watts
  per steradian (visible magnitude -20.8) and 1.1 x10^11 joules,
respectively.
 
 (If you have questions call Air Force Technical Applications Center Office
of 
 Public Affairs at (407) 494-4403.) 
  

*****************************************************************************

 PLEASE NOTE: THIS USAF BOLIDE INFORMATION RELEASE AND ALL PREVIOUS RELEASES
 
 CAN BE FOUND ON THE WWW AT 
 http://phobos.astro.uwo.ca/~pbrown/usaf.html