[meteorite-list] Military intelligence-- still an oxymoron.

[Mr EMan]

Who knows what justification was used but I've got a pretty good idea I know what the real reason is.  For 4 months I've had weekly phone calls with AF Personnel all over the globe and against all belief I very much suspected that something had gone dark. As to the article someone somewhere in the "Gouffment" will have issued a press release--tranparency and all that. Rhymes with AFLAC I expect.  Then again I might have prompted it by making all those Freedom of Information Act fireball data requests.

In the (g)olden days of fireball reports, the data was sanitized (like GPS signals used to be deliberately degraded) to make the data useful but to not to give away the collecting asset's (RID)capabilities. Dr Peter Brown used to post the releases but rumor has it he moved to a foreign but more meteoritically progressive country...Canada I think it was.

This will probably get me a visit from a "Yo'Mama Administration Homey-Land Dark Suit-Squad" but what the heck!... I estimate by this day and age we can probably count nosecone rivets during assent on the other side of the globe and detect when an un-named Lunatic National Leader of an un-named Northern Division of a divided country in Asia lights up his weed bong.

Elton


--- On Thu, 6/11/09, Fries, Marc D <marc.d.fries at jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
  My favorite part
> is this:
 The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.
> 
> Yeah, that's it.  You're not allowed to know that
> meteors exist.  Why, that makes perfect sense, and I'm sure that's exactly how the rule change was phrased.
> 
> It seems more likely that someone decided that a clever
> observer could discern important details about our technical capabilities from the information handed out to meteor watchers and decided to clamp down.  It may be a temporary change while they review the policy, but you can't tell from that magnificent piece of professional journalism.
> 
> Magnificent.