[meteorite-list] Time delay: Park Forest / Mar 01 Eyewitness Report

[bernd.pauli at paulinet.de]

Hello List,

Larry had written: "He was not yet asleep when he experienced the bright
light illuminating his bedroom and the tremendous explosions that followed.
A *couple minutes* later he heard a disturbance outside, he said it sounded
like something hit his house." 

Then I inquired:

"...was it really "a couple minutes later" or was it "a couple seconds later"?

I wanted to know because one of the German eyewitnesses from Überlingen, Lake
Constance, wrote about the March 1 fireball in the "Südkurier" - a local newspaper:

"...I was watching TV and wondering where that blinding, brilliant light might
come from. It illuminated the steeple of the town's cathedral for about a second.
* A few   s e c o n d s  later *, a slight rolling thunder was to be heard."

Chauncey responded with an accurate estimate (see Sterling's comment below):

"...the difference might be on the order of 3.5 minutes"

Steve Arnold, Arkansas:

"One man...was at the stop light at the north central part of Steger when he saw
the fireball flash and extinguish. He went through the light and drove home. He
parked his car in front of his house on the street, and was walking up his driveway
when he heard a whistling noise..."

"Curiosity had me go to that same stop light later that night when traffic was very
light, and I retraced his path to his house. It took me, as I recall, a little over
4 minutes to make the route to his house and to walk up his driveway."

Sterling's brilliant, in-depth comment (excerpts):

"Both 2 minutes and 4 minutes are perfectly reasonable fall times for Park Forest
..the 'minutes' time scale seems right and the 'seconds' time scale seems unlikely."


Best wishes,

Bernd