[meteorite-list] Family Claims Meteorite FellInTheirCourtyardinIndia

[Martin Altmann]

Hi Chris,

"And while media stories about suspected meteorite falls tend to be of poor
quality regardless of origin, this is not universally so in the U.S. or
Europe."

I wouldn't second that.... 
It's rather accidentally, if suspected US- and European falls find in the
first days a careful reporter or even an expert.

If I think back here in Germany, when a piece of asphalt was presented to
the press by a geologist from one of the largest university of the country
as the first piece found of the Neuschwanstein bolide and as a rare
carbonaceous..
or if I think to the Chiemgau-Impact-debate, resulting in incredible
docu-dramas on TV (quintessence: The Raise of the Roman Empire was caused by
the impact in Bavaria, because the Celts then were able to forge a specially
hard steel out of the remnants of the comet, which the Romans used for their
swords....)
or last year, where the report, that a hot micro-meteorite would have ignite
an arbour, which burnt down and hurt a man, made it to the
prime-time-TV-news in the 1st-channel,

then I have my doubts :-)

The old landslide in Scandinavia, identified as being the impact of an
observed bolide...

Or the stereotype also in the US-news, that whenever a chunk shows up, said
to have fallen from sky, that the experts are measuring the radioactivity
on-site and of the piece in question, to determine, whether it is a
meteorite....

(List archives are full of such newpaper reports).

Best!
Martin