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& * ™~ H (COPY) e ® Pueblo, Colorado February 20, 1948 Office of the Chief. of Staff Washington, D, Cc. Subject: Explosion in the sky near Norcatur, “ans. 4:00 pom. (MST) February 18, 1948 Purpose: To call attention to some peculiarities in connection, whether coincidental @ not According to an AP bulletin appearing in the Pueblo CHIEFTAIN for February 18, 19/8, some object was seen moving eastward across the sky on the late afternoon of February 1%th, and when this thing reached a position approximate to Norecatur, Kansas, exploded, or disrupted, or disappeared. The ex- plosion is said to have been terrific. Directions given as to the progress of this appearance in- dicate 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 - @.€-, 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 If this is the case, the apparance is anomalous, and may lend itself to other meteoric explanation. A sketch-diagram of the earth and moon's orbit reveals a pe- culiarity 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 lime 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 S0 to one hundred hours after the explosion took place. New moon occurred at 9 D 10 H 2 M February; First Quarter at 17D SH M, February —- the moon moves approximately . 12.5 degrees per day along its orbit. / of