U.S. Air Force Analysis of Flying Objects in the United States, 101-172

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323 W. Tenth St.,
Pueblo, Colorado
February 20, 1948

Office of the Chief of Staff
U. S. Army
Washington, D. C.

Subject: Explosion in the sky near Norcatur,

4:00 p.m. (MST) February 18, 1948
Purpose: To call attention to some peculiarities

According to an AP bulletin appearing in the Pueblo CHIEFTAIN for February 18, 1948, some object was seen moving eastward across the sky on the late afternoon of February 18th, and when this thing reached a position approximate to Norcatur, Kansas, exploded, or disrupted, or disappeared. The explosion is said to have been terrific.

Directions given as to the progress of this appearance indicate that it moved from west to east.

Information contained in the dispatch under a Denver dateline indicate that while many would call this object a bolide - e.g., exploding meteor - the astronomers of Chamberlin Observatory (Denver) did not so assess it: it is said in the dispatch that these officials could offer no explanation of it.

If this is the case, the appearance is anomalous, and may lend itself to other meteoric explanation.

A sketch-diagram of the earth and moon's orbit reveals a peculiarity in connection with the appearance, which may be significant.

If a line is stricken at right-angles across the meridional position of the site of explosion of this meteor at hour angle four o'clock (local time) and this line be considered the west-to-east course of the object, then it will be seen that if this line is continued outward into space toward the orbit of the moon it will intersect the lunar orbit at a place near to where the moon would be at from 80 to one hundred hours after the explosion took place.

New moon occurred at 9 D 10 H 2 M February; First Quarter at 17D 8H 1 M. February -- the moon moves approximately 12.5 degrees per day along its orbit.