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

[Chris Peterson]

Hi Bernd-

Having taken literally thousands of fireball reports, I'll observe that 
very few people can accurately estimate the time between a flash and 
subsequent sonic boom. For a single event, different witnesses will- 
with absolute confidence- give times ranging from a few seconds to many 
minutes. Of course, witness reports giving the timing between fireballs 
and falls are much rarer, but there's little reason to think that the 
reported times will be more accurate. It's nice when you have a case 
like the guy in the car to allow the timing to be recreated, but that's 
usually not the situation.

In the end, I take almost everything reported by witnesses with a strong 
dose of skepticism.

Chris

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


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>
To: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 12:37 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Time delay: Park Forest / Mar 01 Eyewitness 
Report


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