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Re: (meteorobs) Skunks (was: Aug. 24/25 Report (GRALE)

Hi Ron,

> A couple of weeks back I made a report about a bright single meteor that 
> I had seen in broad daylight.  I thought this must be so rare that I 
> thought it worth reporting to some official body and I filled out what I 
> could on your NAMN form and also sent an attachment.  I have not seen any 
> response to this and am curoius as to what it was.  I did see a brief 
> report on a Denver TV news broadcast, and I also have a cutting from an 
> Apen, CO. newspaper reporting it's sighting, so I know it was real.  The 
> local police even sent out officers to try and find it. But I saw it in 
> north western Oklahoma, almost four hundred miles from Denver, so I guess 
> they didn't find it!  Did you ever see any reports, or hear about this 
> meteor?  I would be grateful for any information, or sources.

as Mark explained to you, it would be the best choice to report the 
fireball (and what you saw obviously was one :-) both to the local 
coordinator and directly to IMO's Fireball Data Center FIDAC (i.e. Andre 
Knoefel). In fact, it is really important to report the fireball to Andre 
a.s.a.p. for the following reason: The American DOD has several 
satellites up there which monitor the whole globe for suspicious rocket 
starts. Those detectors are also able to detect bright fireballs like the 
one you mentioned. Until two years ago or so those data where secret, but 
now the policy of DOD has changed and Andre could establish
good contacts and obtains information about possible fireballs.
In some of the recent WGN issues there have been descriptions of two 
-25 mag events (the brightest fireballs ever observed) seen over Oceania, 
which were witnessed by local fisherman and the DOD satellites. However, and 
here comes the big problem: The tapes with the satellite data are routinely 
erased after *one week*. So Andre needs to know about a possible satellite 
event *within two or three days* to warn the guys from the US army. Then 
they will save the tapes and have a closer look at the given time/place.

The e-mail address of Andre (starex@tron.gundot de or 100114.3235@compuservedot com) 
was already mentioned. He has also put an online fireball report form to 
the WWW (http://www.tu-chemnitzdot de/~smo/imo/fireball/report.html), which helps 
you to report all important circumstances of the observation. At this 
page you will find links to other fireball report forms. However, 
once your data is received by Andre, it will, of course, also be freely 
available to all other organizations.
Sirko
References: