Hi folks, I realise that this is a long-shot and probably a wild goose chase, but here goes anyway...... During the late 70's, a large nightime fireball was witnessed by many people over London, England. I saw it myself and it was every bit as spectacular as the Peekskill fireball, only much shorter in duration......it was breaking up during flight with several smaller fireballs lagging behind the larger fragment. The next day, a science teacher at a local high school in Sutton, who had also seen it, gave his class a lecture on meteorites and asked for more eye witness accounts to be passed to him. It was also mentioned in the newspapers, then quickly forgotten. This was all a very long time ago, but it's still the best fireball I've ever seen and very fresh in my mind. List member Geoff Notkin lived only a few miles from my home back in those days, so perhaps you remember reading about it Geoff? Last year, I was chatting with a British mineral dealer who told me about a meteorite that he'd purchased from a finder in England ~20 years ago. At first, I reckoned on it being another fragment of the Barwell fall, but soon realised that it was something completely different. The mineral dealer had been approached by guy in England who had found a rock lodged in his roof space during recent repairs. Three or four years earlier, he and his family had been startled by a loud "thud" on the roof of their house during the night, but could not account for it afterwards. A corner was ground off the stone to reveal metal flake and chondrules......the mineral dealer bought it from the finder on the spot, then sold it to a collector in America. Although the dealer was primarily involved in selling minerals, he was also experienced in meteorites and swears that the stone was meteoric, fusion crusted and chondritic in nature. Sadly, he no longer remembers who actually bought the stone from him. *&^%$"@!!! Whether or not this meteorite is linked to the fireball witnessed by myself and many others during the late 70's is pure speculation, but there's little doubt that there WAS a fall onto a house in England around the same time, which has so far gone unrecognised. As far as I'm aware, the stone has never been formally classified....if it has been, it's certainly never been submitted to the Meteoritical Society and probably still remains in someone's meteorite/mineral collection in the USA. I've kept some of the finer details back (names, places, times, circumstances etc.) for purposes of authentication, in case this stone ever surfaces again in the future. If you think it strange how a meteorite can lodge itself within a roof without being noticed or cause any leaks over 3 years, there's good reason for that too! We know when and where it fell, how it impacted, and the somewhat unusual circumstances surrounding it's recovery, as well as the weight of the stone itself. If anyone feels that they may have it in their collection or knows who might, please feel free to fill in the blanks and let me know. There's also a $20K incentive on offer to the mystery owner, should he wish to sell it to me :-)
Cheers, Rob Elliott. http://fernlea.tripod.com/forsale.html Fernlea Meteorites, The Wynd, Off Dickson Lane, Milton of Balgonie, Fife. KY7 6PY United Kingdom Tel: +44-(0)1592-751563 Fax: +44-(0)1592-751991 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
