Expert: Paul Wagner - 6/10/2006

Question
In the summer of '69, I was one of many people at a motel in Palm Springs, CA that saw a large object flying north to south across the nighttime sky.
I was 9 & although my recollection is slightly different than other family members today, it is still very vivid.
My first thought was that it was a plane on fire.  But I was told in the days to follow that it was so big & far away, that it was also seen in Denver (???).  It supposedly fell into the ocean south of Baja California.
I looked online a couple years ago & found an account of a man my age who saw the same thing looking east from his window in Bakersfield in August of '69.  He said he saw several objects though.
Anywhere I can find scientifically what really happened that night?
Thx!

Answer
HI KC:

The really big meteorite of April 1969 was in the UK, not in the US.  It sounds as if you saw a really big meteorite--and that it not unusual.  It also turns out that there were some scientists who thought that April was a good month to look for those things;

"Back in the 1970s there was talk of a meteorite-dropping swarm that intersected the Earth's orbit during the second
half of April.  In fact, here is an exerpt from the 1991 edition of Guy Ottewell's Astronomical Calendar: "April Fireballs," Apr. 15-30, an annual sparse irregular shower of bright meteors some of which reach Earth as meteorites."

Also in the September 1970 S&T, in the News Notes section, page 138, there is an item concerning "April Meteorite Coincidences."  The notation speaks of the similarity between the calculated orbits of a shadow-casting fireball that passed over northern New Jersey on April 23, 1962 and a bolide which dropped meteorites over England, Wales and northern Ireland on April 25, 1969.

The late Charles P. Olivier provided a preliminary orbit for the 1962 fireball based on 80 observations, finding a radiant at RA 183-degrees (12hrs 12min), declination -26-degrees.  For the 1969 bolide, British workers used a computer at the University of Liverpool to analyze over 300 sightings and found a radiant point at RA 186-degrees (12hrs 24 min.), declination -31-degrees.  Two sets of orbital elements were later computed and were found to be "remarkably similar, differing by less than their uncertainties."

Lastly . . . in the June 1970 Journal of the British Astronomical Asociation, Keith B. Hindley and Howard G. Miles suggested that: "The period April 23-26 should be covered in the future by amateur and professional groups in
the hope of recording further associated fireballs and perhaps meteorite falls."

So that sounds pretty much like what you saw...

Paul Wagner