Expert: Paul Wagner - 12/27/2008

Question
 In the mid to late 60's I witnessed a fireball in upstate NY, it was during the day and mid summer and you could hear the roar like a jet plane as it went over from the SSW to the NNE.
 Is there any way to find out more information on it, if it landed somewhere, or burned up?
 I seem to remember it made the cover of Look or Life but it was a long time ago and a little blurry with time.
 Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

Rick

Answer
Hi Rick

You could try by starting with the International Meteor Organization.  Here's a list of fireballs from the 1960's that they have documented:

http://www.imo.net/bib/fireve96.html

I did find this record of a fireball that clearly meets your description, ending up in Michigan in December of 1965:

The news media were alerted that a meteorite had fallen, and that observations were desired. A map of the eastern United States was readied for plotting end-points reported from various locations. The end-point is the position in the sky where the luminous object seems to disappear. Early reports soon established the approximate limit of observation of the fireball: Sault Ste. Marie to the north, western New York state to the east, Virginia to the south, and Chicago to the west. Since skies were reasonably clear over most of this region, the fireball apparently occurred somewhere in the central part, in the vicinity of Lake Erie (fig. 1).

As end-points were plotted, the lines clearly indicated the fireball passed over Lake Erie from the southwest and disappeared over southwest Ontario (fig. 1). Explosive retorts were heard in the Detroit area three to five minutes after the fireball disappeared. This information indicated the meteorite must have fallen north of Lake Erie in Ontario. The loudest boom marking the end-point of the fireball was produced not more than 35 miles southeast of the heart of Detroit.

This is on page four of the document found here:

http://www.deq.state.mi.us/documents/deq-ogs-gimdl-BU05.pdf

I hope that helps you narrow things down a bit!

Paul Wagner