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(meteorobs) Re: astronomers meteors and fires

John Bortle said,

>Gregg Lawrence, in his post mentions (seriously or otherwise) a book that 
>suggests the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was possibly started by a "hot" 
>meteorite fall. 

I have Robert Cromie's excellent book  "The Great Chicago Fire"  which gives
the best hour-by-hour account of the night it happened.  There were 17 steam
engines in the fire department implying that minimum number of firehouses.
Watchmen were posted on the roofs at night.  The courthouse tower also had a
lookout.  Nobody mentioned anything about seeing a meteor.  Anything above
-4m should have been readily noticed in the black sky over the city.

There was a witness across the street from ground zero also.  He had left
the O'Leary house before 9 PM on the fateful night, as the entire family had
retired.  Around 9 PM, as he was lounging on the elevated sidewalk facing
the O'Leary barn and house, he saw fire shoot out of a barn window.  He
didn't mention any meteor either.   The legend of a cow knocking over a
lantern was never proven to be true.  Why would there be a lantern in the
barn with no one present?  So the cause is unknown.

The summer of 1871 brought drought to Chicago.  The first week of October
was unusually warm, and the city, built almost entirely of wood, was a
gigantic tinderbox.  A strong SW wind, a day in advance of a cold front, was
the biggest factor in spreading the fire.  Many buildings and sidewalks were
elevated to get them out of the often-present mud, so any fire would be
intensified with the draft coming in the bottom.  All the previous week
there had been several fires daily.  Just the night before (Saturday) the
worst fire to that point burned out 4 blocks.

Other localities had major wooden-city levelling fires in the 1800's also,
but Chicago had the biggest and most famous one.


John again,

>But even more disturbing is that I heard a professional astronomer seriously 
>bring up this very subject (the two fires) at a scientific conference, along 
>with serveral other "fantasy" events he had located in the literature. I must 
>say that I thereafter held little esteem for the gentleman.


This reminds me of an incident I had with a professional in Florida.  I am
reposting my account from a couple of years back, beginning here : 


In regard to the following,

>In a message dated 98-11-19 06:31:02 EST, you write:
[this wasn't John Bortle]

><< Professor John Brown, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, based at Glasgow 
> University, said: "This is certainly a fascinating account. It is perfectly 
> possible the cause of the fire could have been a meteorite."  >>
>
>
>I hope this guy lost his job over this ridiculous statement. How did he become
>Astronomer Royal?  

there are two possibilities.  First, newspaper writers make up things to
embellish their reports.  The entire quote from the astronomer could be
false and no contact ever made.  Mike in Canberra wasn't contacted by the
press there.  In 1979 Nov here I reported to the press a blue  -12 Leonid
fireball with ten-minute train seen Thanksgiving morning (Nov 22) at 530AM
EST, in order to head off screwy UFO reports.  Despite allowing plenty of
time for correct information to be written down, the short article had seven
errors !  In addition, they  "quoted" me as saying  "I'm sure I saw it."
Being a holiday morning, only a tiny handful of other people also saw it ;
even the highway was deserted.  That phrase is not part of my vocabulary for
any meteor brighter than 7th magnitude.  How could I not be sure I saw this
one when I was blinded for a few seconds?

The other possibility is of much concern.  Some professional astronomers get
into such narrow topics of study that they never learn basic visual
astronomy and never actually get out to look at the sky.  I found this out
for myself ten years ago ; the following story I have told previously but is
worth repeating.  An active meteor observer from the early 70's told me
about working with a New York professional who was interested in zodiacal
light.  Extensive study of photos went on for years but the astronomer
didn't see the zodiacal light with his own eyes until more recently.   Then
he moved to Gainesville, Florida and established a research institute.

One January a woman reported to the institute a fireball seen landing to the
NE from 12 miles east of Gainesville ; she went a half mile into the woods
at night and found the landed meteorite  "still glowing."  The astronomer
spent a couple of days out there with a small search party and, needless to
say, couldn't find anything.  It so happens I was due to go up to
Gainesville the following day and visit my parents also living there.  I
called the institute and was informed the astronomer was "in the field" ; I
suppressed a laugh.  Meeting with him and coworkers the next day, I had to
go over basic fireball behavior to demonstrate that he is wasting his time
searching for this fireball.  Combining with another report from a pilot
near Augusta, Georgia seeing it at azimuth 100 indicated that it would have
landed in the Atlantic off South Carolina !  He ignored the reports of other
people in town who also saw it to the NE,  hoped there were two separate
fireballs to dismiss the Georgia report, and hoped someone else further east
on the highway that night would have seen it in the west.   I utterly failed
to dissuade him from conducting a massive search operation the following
weekend using dozens of people, plus a helicopter to look for broken tree
branches in the landing !  So much for being believed after giving a lucid
presentation.

For that matter, scientists in other fields sometimes don't know anything
about meteors either.  In early 1979 one mid-morning along the lower Florida
east coast, a policeman reported seeing a daylight fireball fall  "sizzling"
into the water and  "sending up steam."   So a group of marine biologists
spent the next three days dragging a square mile of ocean bottom just off
the Palm Beach area.  They figured they were looking for something  "about
the size of a car"  based on the original report.  Once again, a gross waste
of time stemming from ignorance.

Norman


Norman W. McLeod III
Staff Advisor
American Meteor Society

Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod@peganet.com

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