[meteorite-list] Warning to armchair fireball chasers

[MeteorHntr at aol.com]

Hey All,

I wanted to add something  here.  As noted in the Baltimore Sun story 
today, Mike Hankey was quoted  that a lot of people were contacting him by phone 
about the photo he captured of  the fireball.  

I spent a couple hours with Mike at his house and at  his scope, and he is 
really a great guy.  Excited that his hobby of just 6  months produced such 
a lucky outcome, he was on one hand glad that people  appreciate his 
results. 

On the other hand, he was starting to notice a  pattern when talking with 
people, that while they wanted to extract information  from him, they all to 
often were trying to hint that he shouldn't share this  same information 
with others that might ask later.  At least one had boldly  asked him not to 
share it with anyone else. 

He told me that there was an  offer of "official recognition" made if a 
meteorite turned up, due to his  cooperation with them AND if he didn't 
cooperate with others.     He asked me in an email, if maybe the meteorite might be 
able to be named after  him if it was found.  Now, I am not sure if such a 
"bribe" was actually  offered to him, or if his ego was maybe puffed up a 
bit by being made to think  that his contribution to some of us really made 
him important enough to warrant  the rock being named after him?  Maybe he 
came up with that on his own, or  maybe the idea was planted with him.

My caution to those of you working  the phones, it is NOT just those of us 
in the field that say and do things that  affect the stories that go to 
print.  Mike was impacted by what he was  getting from emails and phone calls 
from others enough to comment to me, and to  comment to the reporter, who did 
end up writing about it.

Sometimes it is  easy for our guard to be let down, that if we are not 
talking directly to a  reporter, that what we are saying will just stay between 
us and the person we  are talking to.   We saw today that this is not always 
the  case.

We saw in Buzzard Coulee, West and Georgia how people can  offer cash 
rewards to buy rocks from their home, not from the field, and how  that can also 
affect the stories in the papers.  

I am not being  overly critical here, I just wanted people to know that 
many things influence a  story that goes to print, not just what is said in 
interviews by people on the  ground.

Steve Arnold
of Meteorite Men  

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