38_143685_box_Incident_Summaries_101-172

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Excerpt of letter dated April 11, 1948 from Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, Director, Institute of Meteoritics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the Deputy Executive Director, Committee on Geophysical Sciences, Research and Development Board:

Thank you for the surprising documents sent me under date of March 30. As you remark, certain aspects of Markham's letters are fantastic (for example: (1) the fireball procession of 1913, February 9, was genuinely meteoric, although a rare type of chain fall; (2) no astronomer could take seriously Markham's "invasion by beings from Venus or the Moon"-theory: (3) he appeals to, and biases in his favor, such untrustworthy evidence as newspaper stories, e.g., the absurd statement attributed to Dr. Rocht of the Chamberlin Observatory). Nevertheless, Markham is justified in calling attention to certain incidents as unexplained, for example, the "flying lenses" (in my opinion 99% hoax and imagination and 1% real).

As regards the Norcatur, Kansas incident, I remain convinced that, like the Four Corners incident, it was a genuine meteorite fall, although one of exceptional size (again like the Four Corners fall). However, there are many curious aspects of both these falls, some of an objective nature, like the singular fact that in spite of intensive searches (admittedly under bad terrain and weather conditions), not a trace of meteoritic material has so far been found; some of a non-objective nature, like the amazing testimony given by Mr. Leland Sammons, Mr. Alfred Glenn, and other witnesses of the Norcatur incident, both to members of the State Highway Commission of Kansas and to Institute of Meteoritics field survey parties. (See exhibits A, B, and C enclosed.)

Some comment on such testimony as appears in A, B, and C would seem desirable:

1. Glenn first reported the battery case as red hot. When I pointed out that the paper on it was not charred, his account was changed to "too hot to handle". The Institute of Meteoritics party found only two men, not four, who saw the battery case fall. The battery case has been examined by Dr. Victor Regener, Department of Physics, University of New Mexico, who states that it appears to be identical with the small batteries used in portable radios.

2. K. Hays' identification of the Norcatur object as a rocket has the following support: On the morning of February 19, I talked to the towerman and two assistants at the Air Base at McCook Field, Nebraska. All three denied the Norcatur object was a fireball and described it as a black object with an extremely bright jet of flame pouring out of the rear. Furthermore, a 14-year old, and presumably unbiased, schoolgirl in Oberlin, Kansas wrote me a similar description of the "Fireball."