Edmonton Sun Edmonton, Canada Sunday, August 19, 2001 The truth is out there too, it seems. Perhaps the most spectacular sighting in Alberta recently credited to UFOs is from the small community of Etzikom, about 650 km south of Edmonton.
About the end of April, farmer Ken Masson found a crater in his fields, according to Dr. Pano Karkanis, a soil scientist and associate professor at the University of Lethbridge. "The farmer was quite scared, worried a little that a UFO had landed on his land," said Karkanis. Masson has farmed the land for 14 years, and was out picking rocks from the field when he found the crater, about 2.5 metres across, said Karkanis. "So it came down to me, and the university asked to do some work. I was curious myself, so I went down, took some measurements and did what I could do." A man from a nearby Hutterite colony saw a "funnel of fire" descend from the sky, lasting about 45 minutes to an hour, throwing off sparks as it faded, media has reported. But when The Sun contacted Joseph Stahl, manager of the Mayfield Hutterite brethren, he said no one saw the event, and said the crater was a "badger trap." Karkanis said he concluded the crater was probably not the result of some kind of exotic aircraft or alien ship. "I believe it was a small meteorite that split from a larger body in the upper atmosphere. They can fall with a great deal of speed, and as they fall through the atmosphere, they can get quite hot." No radiation was detected using a Geiger counter he brought along, and the impact was consistent with something a meteorite would cause, said Karkanis. But the issue will remain unresolved until Masson decides to dig up the site in search of any meteorite fragments, had added. ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
