Subj:	[yowusa_moderator] Government cover up of Meteor that impacted earth now disclosed.
Date:	5/29/01 4:51:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Government cover up of Meteor that impacted earth now disclosed.

Mary

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Thanks Mary,
 

I take it the '72-hour grace period' regarding the disclosure of asteroid/meteor impacts does not apply to airbursts?

<The Air Force did not publicly disclose its imaging of the recent blast until late May,
<more than a month afterward. In a terse release on May 25, its Technical Applications
<Center, at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, said the flash was "non- nuclear" and
<consistent with past observed meteor explosions.

<After that disclosure, Los Alamos got the military's permission to reveal its own <detection of the April event. Its ground-based sensors are even more sensitive than <orbiting satellites to the repercussions of meteor blasts. The ground-based sensors work <like sensitive ears to detect very low-frequency sound waves, which radiate outward from <an exploding rock over hundreds and thousands of miles.

<"It was a big event," he said. "There are people worrying about impacts on the earth, and <these things are giving us a better understanding of the impact rate. That's the real <byproduct scientifically."

additionally...

<The disclosure of such intruders is seen as bolstering the idea that the earth is <periodically subjected to strikes by even larger objects, including doomsday rocks a few <miles wide. Objects this size are predicted to hit once every 10 million years or so, <causing mayhem and death on a planetary scale.

What implications does this present for 'Tunguska-sized' airbursts?

IMO, we ought to be notified IMMEDIATELY of ALL such events!

Tim
 

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Military Warning System Also Tracks Bomb-Size Meteors
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/science/29ROCK.html

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

In the early darkness of April 23, as Washington was beginning to relax after the spy plane crisis in China, alarm bells began to go off on the military system that monitors the globe for nuclear blasts.

Orbiting satellites that keep watch for nuclear attack had detected a blinding flash of light over the Pacific several hundred miles southwest of Los Angeles. On the ground, shock waves were strong enough to register halfway around the world.

Tension reignited until the Pentagon could reassure official Washington that the flash was not a nuclear blast. It was a speeding meteoroid from outer space that had crashed into the earth's atmosphere, where it exploded in an intense fireball.

"There was a big flurry of activity," recalled Dr. Douglas O. ReVelle, a federal scientist who helps run the military detectors. "Events like this don't happen all the time."

Preliminary estimates, Dr. ReVelle said, are that the cosmic intruder was the third largest since the Pentagon began making global satellite observations a quarter century ago. Its explosion in the atmosphere had nearly the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The episode shows how the system that warns of missile attack and clandestine nuclear blasts is fast evolving to detect bomb-size meteors as well. Now, it finds them about once a month, on average. But Dr. ReVelle, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said in an interview that the developing system was likely to find many more of the natural blasts in the years ahead.

"The real number is probably bigger," he said. "There's no doubt about that. But we don't know how much bigger."

Already, the system has shown that the planet is being continually struck by large speeding rocks, and that the rate of bombardment is higher than previously thought. The blasts light the sky with brilliant fireballs but people seldom see the blasts because they usually occur over the sea or uninhabited lands.

The rocky objects are anywhere from a few feet to about 80 feet wide. They vanish in titanic explosions high in the atmosphere, their enormous energy of motion converted almost instantly into vast amounts of heat and light.

The Air Force did not publicly disclose its imaging of the recent blast until late May, more than a month afterward. In a terse release on May 25, its Technical Applications Center, at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, said the flash was "non- nuclear" and consistent with past observed meteor explosions.

A Defense Department satellite, the Air Force said, detected bright flashes over a period of more than two seconds.

After that disclosure, Los Alamos got the military's permission to reveal its own detection of the April event. Its ground-based sensors are even more sensitive than orbiting satellites to the repercussions of meteor blasts. The ground-based sensors work like sensitive ears to detect very low-frequency sound waves, which radiate outward from an exploding rock over hundreds and thousands of miles.

The sensors record sounds well below the range of human hearing, including those from underground nuclear tests as well as atmospheric blasts.

Dr. ReVelle said four arrays of the lab's sound sensors had picked up the April blast. In addition, he said, sound detectors in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and Germany had picked up its shock waves. Two sensors in South America made tentative detections, he added.

"It was a big event," he said. "There are people worrying about impacts on the earth, and these things are giving us a better understanding of the impact rate. That's the real byproduct scientifically."

The speeding boulder was perhaps 12 feet wide, he added.

An even more sensitive global ear is emerging as the world's nations try to monitor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a tentative accord that seeks to end the exploding of nuclear arms and to police compliance. When finished in the next year or so, the global acoustic system is to consist of 60 arrays that give complete global coverage, increasing the odds that even more large meteor impacts will be detected.

The disclosure of such intruders is seen as bolstering the idea that the earth is periodically subjected to strikes by even larger objects, including doomsday rocks a few miles wide. Objects this size are predicted to hit once every 10 million years or so, causing mayhem and death on a planetary scale.