[meteorite-list] Help, your opinion needed

[Chris Peterson]

While the object you have sounds interesting, and may or may not be a 
meteorite, I'd wager that what you saw was actually a good hundred miles 
away. I get many witness reports for fireballs that insist the event skimmed 
the trees, came down in the field across the street, etc. In no case I've 
examined have these reports been remotely accurate, and I know of no case 
ever where a fireball was seen to impact the ground near an observer. The 
illusion of fireball nearness is very strong.

I wouldn't normally try to identify a meteorite from a photograph. I would 
say that I've never encountered a meteorite with enough iron to show as 
visible inclusions that wasn't also noticeably ferromagnetic.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jwb7772 at netzero.net>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 9:14 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Help, your opinion needed

> In 1957 I witnessed a fireball come down from the very start(I was looking 
> in the right place) to it's finish.  In fact it came so close I thaught it 
> might hit me, but it slightly arked up and flew over head at about 50 feet 
> between me and a telephone poll, droping multi colored teardrops behind 
> it.  It skimed the tree tops two blocks away and landed.  It was the most 
> AWSUM thing I have ever seen, at that time.  Well some years later I 
> searched the area and found what looked like a cinder rock.  It was all 
> burned and even had a yellow-green crust in spots.  It was not magnetic 
> but was quite heavy.  So I kepted it all of these years thinking it was 
> not a meteorite.
>     Well today I cut it open to find bright metal, looks like nickel, and 
> a few white clats (moon type?)
>     So maybe it could me a meteorite.  I also thought impactasite, but 
> from whare?  It has mostly a gray color and sections are of a olive drab 
> green color and look quite glassy.  And in the holes there seems to been a 
> green glassy shine.  If anyone has any idea as to what it sounds like 
> please let me know your thoughts.  If anyone is interested enough I would 
> be happy to send you a few pictures.  Thanks Jim