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Re: (meteorobs) Fireballs & sonic booms

Lew Gramer wrote:
> 
> Markku, George asks a good question regarding your sensation of directional
> sound from this fireball... If the audible effect is in fact caused by radio
> waves resonating with surrounding metallic structures, it would be difficult
> to imagine triangulating the direction from which the waves emanated.

  Yes, I pondered this too back then after I had read from magazines that
meteoric sounds might have been linked with metals.  There was chimney 
(which have metal skirts and I used to block out the Moon) and other 
metallic structures one meter away on my right hand side (about 250 to 
300 degrees in azimuth and the fireball being about 10 degrees in azimuth) 
and since I considered these metals being the cause of this sound, I 
wondered too why I didn't hear the sound from my right hand side.

  Eight meters away on my left hand side there is power lines.  And unfoled
beach chair, I was lying on, has an aluminium pipe frame and other metallic 
spings and lines.  And I probably had different camera equipments and 
binoculars on the roof around me.  So, unless all or most of these metals 
didn't aid me to triangulate the direction (and hear the fireball, so to 
speak, 'in stero', which I very much doubt), then I guess metals has 
nothing to do with meteor electrophonic sounds.  Or at least in my case.

> Therefore it is interesting that you experienced that directional sensation!
> One possibility this suggests is that the flash seen on the ground from this
> fireball was the actual cause of your directional sensation - and therefore
> of your sensation of simultaneous sound as well?

  No, I saw the flash on something, but that I can't remember it anymore and
it wasn't something I considered significant then.

> Of course, what I fail to understand about THAT explanation, is how a flash
> could provide the necessary directionality in so short a time? If anything,
> I would expect the play of light and shadow from a fireball might CONFUSE
> the observer as to the actual source's direction. Or am I missing something?
 
  Surely when objects near you are casting shadows, the lengths and 
directions of these shodows tells you the right direction and something
about the right altitude.  Since I don't have that much experience in 
fireballs, I only assume that being the case.

> BTW I think it may be significant, independent of any question of direction,
> that you remember perceiving a sound but DON'T pecifically mention seeing a
> reflection of the fireball... Again, like my own and similar experiences I
> have heard described, this seems to present some difficultly with assigning
> a "synaesthesial" (thanks for the word, Rob ;>) explanation to this event.

  I don't remember its reflection anymore since, in my brain, that image
has faded, but back then I wrote down seeing the flash, but didn't write
where did I saw it on.  As I was lying and watching upward, I might have
noticed reflection from the chimney, power line pole, apple tree branches
or from blankets on my lower body.  At the time I even might have been 
watching more down than up and seen the reflection from the roof.

  Anyway, I was so thrilled and excited about my sense of hearing guiding
me instinctively to the right spot before I had time to thing about anything 
that I found everything else of secondary importance.  I assumed then that
meteoric sounds were something else, but I wasn't thrilled by the sound 
itself.  I was thrilled about being able spot it on by hearing the sound.
That was something I was so sure and I still am.

Markku


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