[meteorite-list] Meteorite doubts emerge (the Norway "meteorite)

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi,

    I believe the quick and enthusiastic response
to this "incident" was potentiated by the earlier
Norwegian bolide last month. Word of it didn't
even get reported for several days but interest
built up after a week. It was unexpected and so
it took people awhile to "wake up" to the event.
    This kind of report -- the odd rock and the
strange hole in the garden kind of report -- tends
to come, singly or in a small flurry, after a real
event. The seed of the notion is already in place.
Humans "see" what they are prepared to "see."
Likewise, they often don't "see" what they
don't expect to "see." The senses+brain system
is not a simple "camera-like" mechanism.
    By now, Norwegians were "prepared" to
think METEORITE.
    Meanwhile, we hear nothing more about the
very real earlier object or the location of its
terminal point, witnesses, etc. Its energy has
been determined to have been about 380
kiloTons of TNT, but beyond that, nothing,
which is the usual outcome of a big fireball.

Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse at charter.net>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 11:39 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorite doubts emerge (the Norway "meteorite)


http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1385336.ece

Meteorite doubts emerge
Astronomers were excited by what they thought was a meteorite that fell near 
a
Norwegian house over the weekend. Now an expert at the National History 
Museum
in Oslo says he thinks it's just an ordinary earthly rock.

Gunnar Raade of the museum told Aftenposten.no that he's convinced the odd-,
spongey-looking stone that Bjørn Herigstad found in his yard near Stavanger 
on
Sunday is no meteorite.

"I have asked him to send me some pieces of the stone, but I can already 
say,
based on pictures I've seen on the Internet, that it's a rock from earth," 
said
Raade, who has worked with meteorites for 25 years.

Herigstad got the impression from local astronomers and a professor in
astro-physics that it was indeed a meteorite lying near a mysterious hole in 
the
ground that he also discovered on his property before finding the two-kilo 
hunk
of stone.

Now he wonders whether someone was playing a practical joke on him. He 
admits he
should have sought more professional opinions before contacting the media.

"I'll take good care of the stone regardless," he said. "I've never 
experienced
anything like this before."
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