Tatum, J B and Stumpf, L L and Kormos, Laura (2000) The Vancouver Island fireballs of spring 1998. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 112 (777). pp. 1487-1495. ISSN 0004-6280
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Three fireballs bright enough to attract the attention of numerous witnesses over Vancouver Island and adjacent areas appeared within an interval of 5 weeks. Each was investigated by in situ interviews of eyewitnesses and instrumental measurement of angles. Although recovery of meteorites is unlikely from any of them, and only two of the investigations yielded credible atmospheric trajectories or ground tracks, it is felt to be useful to place the original measurements on permanent record. In addition, in this paper we advocate the use of a consistent and self-explanatory nomenclature for the geometrical description of the track of a fireball. One of the fireballs was remarkable for the number of independent reports of simultaneous sound described by eyewitnesses, and we feel it is important to place on record the circumstances of events described to us. Although the reality of this often-reported phenomenon is not universally accepted, the body of accumulated anecdotal evidence is by now formidable. However, unambiguous instrumental detection of simultaneous sound has yet to be convincingly achieved.