A Bright Flying Object And Another Enigmatic Crater.

[Terry W. Colvin]

The word bolide seems to have gone out of fashion, replaced by fireball.

Terry W. Colvin
.
.
.

BT
UNCLAS
SUBJ: A Bright Flying Object And Another Enigmatic Crater

The curious event described in the following abstract is eerily like
the fireball and suspicious "crater" mentioned in SF#110. In that
incident, which occurred November 22, 1996, near the Honduras-Guatemala
border, there was also a detonation.

"On the early morning of 1994 January 18, a very
bright luminous object crossed the sky of Santiago
de Compostela, Spain. From visual sightings, it is
concluded that the object wasn't a meteoric fireball
(bolide). A surface "crater" in Cando (close to
Santiago) with dimensions 29 x 13 m and 1.5 m deep
was later discovered within 1 km of the projected
"impact" point of the luminous object. At this site,
in addition to the topsoil, full-grown pine trees
greater than 20 m high were thrown downhill over a
nearby road, leaving the downslope edge of the
"crater" untouched and with a steep interior wall
(this would not be the case if a regular landslide
were responsible for the transport). Standing trees
below the "crater" showed embedded soil and plant
residues up to heights greater than 3 m. No strange
materials (meteorites or artifacts) were recovered
in or close to the "crater"; all materials belonged
to the site and were not shocked; thus an impact is
very improbable.

"A possible explanation capable of reconciling all
of the observations is presented. It hypothesizes an
eruption of earth gases to create the crater, with
the rising gas plume then interacting with atmospheric
electricity to produce the propagating fireball that
was observed."

(Docobo, J.A., et al; "Investigation of a Bright Flying Object over
Northwest Spain, 1994 January 18," Meteoritics and Planetary Science,
33:57, 1998.)

Comments. We cannot resist associating these strange "craters" with
the even stranger "cookie-cutter" holes or shallow "craters" reported
in SF#37 and in more detail in ETB7 in our catalog Carolina Bays,
Mima Mounds, etc.

In a bizarre coincidence, the fireball item of SF#110 is immediately
preceded by a suggestion by R. Spaulding that TWA800 was downed by a
methane eruption from the sea which ignited, thereby leading to the
several observations of streaks of light prior to that disaster. And
who is the secondlisted author of the paper abstracted above? None
other than R. Spaulding!!

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf120/p120-12.gif
The shallow Spanish 'crater'
(A) The shallow Spanish "crater"
(D) "crater" lip
(E) walkway
(F) trees plastered with soil
(G) soild thrown from "crater"
(H) trees 0.6-meter (2-feet) in diameter thrown down the slope.

From Science Frontiers #120, NOV-DEC 1998. (C) 1998-2000 William R. Corliss
BT