Harvard Observatory Makes Report On Large Meteor Seen In New England

A preliminary report from the Harvard Observatory on the meteor which flashed across eastern New England skies early Wednesday afternoon, September 26. indicates that the fireball exploded over the Atlantic Ocean about 180 miles due east from Boston.

Temporary computations based on observations contained in over 250 letters received by the Observatory in answer to a newspaper and radio appeal on Wednesday and Thursday, September 26 and 27, yield the following statistics: the particles, visible for about 75 miles almost due north to south, was in the air approximately 2 seconds, and dropped from a height of 52 miles to one of 15 miles before disintegrating; the time of flight was between 2.26 o'clock and 2.27 o'clock Eastern Daylight Time.

According to the Observatory's figures the angle of the meteor's descent to earth was about 30 degrees. The actual size of the disturbance was probably about 500 feet across. A more exact description of the position of the flight follows: the position at the start was approximately 67 degrees 40' West, 63 degrees 21' North; when it exploded, the position was approximately 67 degrees 15' West, 42 degrees 28' North.

It is emphasized that these figures are in no way final. Definite statistics will not be available until the Observatory Staff has had opportunity to catalogue and investigate all the reports, including those which are yet to come in, especially from ships in the vicinity.

The computations are made difficult by a wide divergence of opinion amongst the observers as to the actual appearance and flight of the blinding particle. Although the Observatory's Correspondents generally agreed that the flight was from north to south, a few believed that the meteor took other directions, notably northeast, and a "zig zag course". Estimates of the time the fireball was in the air yary from "not more than a second" to half a minute.

The letters describe the body variously as silver and orange, orchid and light green; its shape is depicted, by comparison, as a mop handle, a boy's kite, a pop bottle, or, most commonly, a sky rocket.

Where the spectators disagree most violently, however, is in the matter of the distance of the spectacle from their individual points of vantage. If all the reports were to be credited, the meteor, or parts of it would be found in Sebago Lake, Maine; in Pine Hills, Plymouth; in the mouth of Boston Harbor; two hundred yards from the shore at Scituate; and among other places, in the back yard of a gentleman on the south shore.

All this information is catalogued, but the main computations are derived from the reports of obviously competent and trained observers,--surveyors, trained seamen, coastguardsmen, and the like. Their letters, coming from scattered positions along the coast, notable from Isle au Haute, Me.; Boston Harbor, Nantucket, Nantasket, and Jonesboro, Me.; and towns along the North Shore of Massachusetts supply accurate magnetic compass directions and angles of elevations of the starting and vanishing points of the flight, and a comparison of the size of the body with that of the sun at the time.

Even trained observers had difficulty in determining their distance from the particle, but that distance can be readily ascertained by plotting on a map the compass directions, corrected for true north, observatory officials point out. The intersections of the majority of of these lines indicate the approximate positions of the starting and vanishing points.