Steve,
The increased news coverage of Buzzard Coullee and other falls is
probably one reason that there's been more reports of fireballs
recently. Then the one in Sudan which I forgot to mention which was a
first in the history of man. More people are looking to the skies, so
awareness seems to play a big part. Maybe that does explain it a bit
better than an actual increase in numbers of falls. Technological
advance is another.
I would venture to say maybe it's a combination of all the above.
Increased awareness due to coverage, technology, and a peak in yearly
activity. But maybe it is more debris as well. No way to prove that
other than to look out into space and hope to see more.
Eric
P.S. More falls in 1933? Got any links to good reading?
[email protected] wrote:
Hello List,
Here is my take on the recent falls in North America. While there actually
may be more now, as it seems like we had a long drought since Park Forest, I
am wandering if much of this can be traced back to Buzzard Coulee.
The Canadian event gained strong media attention shortly after it fell, and
then the drama provided some great follow up stories as meteorites were
actually found.
Remember, Park Forest happened a couple weeks into our invasion into Iraq,
and as such did not get anything near what it should have in media coverage.
Monahans fell a couple of days after the Oklahoma City Bombings. Other falls
just didn't get much coverage either.
I remember in late 2005 (maybe very early 2006) a photographer for the
Wichita Eagle came back to take photos for a follow up Brenham story a month or so
after the release of the Main Mass find. He told me that the first story
about the Main Mass got more hits on the newspaper's web site than any other
story in the history of the paper! And I checked back after each story and it
seemed each of the 4 or so follow up meteorite stories in the Wichita paper
were getting the top number of hits in the given month the stories ran.
Who would have ever thought meteorites were that interesting?
All of a sudden the Canadian meteor(ite) story gets great coverage, as do
the follow up stories, so editors everywhere now know that local fireball
sightings are good news stories. Not only that, the might even lead to even
bigger stories where meteorites are recovered.
All in all, I think this is a case that meteorites are rising in stature in
the pop culture.
Maybe before, there were just as many fireballs, just fewer people may have
reported them, and even fewer editors found them newsworthy.
I am just hoping for a 1933 rate of local falls with recoveries to hit the
U.S. again!
Then again, someone up there might be mad at us and is throwing rocks at us!
Steve Arnold
Arkansas
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Regards,
Eric Wichman
Meteorites USA
http://www.meteoritesusa.com
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