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Re: (meteorobs) FW: It's that time of year again...



Well now this is getting really odd.  From my limited experience and
knowledge I was under the impression that fire balls were somewhat of a rare
sight for the average person.  In 59 years I had never seen one and a good
deal of my time has been spent backpacking.  Of course the natural past time
for a backpacker is to watch the night sky.  Then along comes two of them
on the same general course within 37 days of each other and I am lucky
enough to see both of them.  Given my curiosity about such events I did do a
little investigation.  It seems that there is a confusion among the general
population as to the difference between a fire ball and a plain old vanilla
meteor (shooting star as some of us village idiots call it).  Now fire balls
have been seen and reported, and made for much conversation and speculations
on the old Art Bell show.  It sort of gave the impression that these objects
were in fact rare.  Of course that was hardly a show of science and the
participants, unlike the astute individuals on this forum, were just of
average intelligence and didn't have all the professed skill as participants
of this forum.

Now here I am writing to many scientific types , who seem to be saying that
these things during certain times of the year are as common as dirt.  How
odd that in all my years outside I seem to have missed all that dirt.  Kind
of makes you wonder what this is all about.  And it sort of makes me wonder
if my pronunciation of 'astute' as applied to some scientific types should
be modified into two distinct sounds.

Nevyn

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