Re: Listening to Leonids

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, Bernard Cleyet wrote:

> OK, OK --  but (nit coming)  we still aren't hearing the meteors directly
> their not even sound! "It" is mediated by a radio receiver.  However, I do
> agree one can use the common sense language.  e.g. Do you listen to KPFA?

This "meteor noise" issue has been controversial for decades if not
centuries.  Eyewitnesses report buzzing or snapping noises at the same
time they see the meteor.  Since this was thought to be impossible, it was
put down to hallucination.  Yet trained witnesses apparently experinced
the same thing: meteor noises without a delay.  About five years ago I saw
a paper about RF pulses created by the plasma tails of meteors, and the
author speculated that electrically charged objects on the ground could
change the RF back into normal sound.  If the e-field in the RF pulse is
strong, we shouldn't be suprised if electrically charged surfaces respond
by making noises.

Search on +electrophonic +meteor and you'll get a few hundred hits.


This is another of those phenomena where the "self-fulfilling prophecy"
effect probably comes into play.  If a phenomenon is thought to be
impossible, then anyone who witnesses it must be insane or something...
and therefore any genuine witnesses would tend to avoid coming forwards to
be ridiculed.  Whenever our first impulse is scornful laughter, there is a
chance that the evidence has been warped by fear of ridicule.


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