- Dec 2004.
Reflector. Experiencing the Great Oklahoma Fireball
of 1920. By Bob Moody. During Christmas 1992, my preconceived
notions of how big or how bright a meteor might become was forever
changed. An elderly woman began asking me about something she
had seen as a young girl. She then proceeded to totally redefine
my understanding of big meteors, or fire balls, as they are
often called. The meteor of June 8, 1920, was bigger, brighter,
and louder than anything anyone had ever seen. Only those who
actually saw it could begin to give the rest of us who missed
it the slightest inkling as to its fantastic power and beauty.
Seen by hundreds of thousands, a meteor of substantial size
entered the Earth's atmosphere at around 8:45 p.m. on June 8,
1920, originating around the Arkansas-Louisiana border area,
and headed westnorthwest. ...One of the first accounts I received,
and probably the best overall, was given to me by 92year-old
Harp Edwards of Sallisaw, Oklahoma. At the time of the event,
Harp was 14 years old and lived with his family three miles
west of Muldrow Oklahoma. The day's work in the fields was done,
and supper was at hand for
them, as for most rural families on that warm June evening.
Harp described himself as lying on his bed, crossways at the
foot, his head and shoulders squarely in the open back door.
His attention was drawn over his left shoulder by a blindingly
bright light fairly low over the southeast horizon. He shot
up out of bed and into the back yard. He told me of seeing the
meteor so low to the horizon that "it looked as if it was
going to hit the dinner bell in the yard?' His gestures convinced
me that he had seen something at a very low angle that was moving
east to west from the southeast at between 30 and 35 degrees
above the horizon. Harp described the meteor's brilliance as
being at least as bright as the Sun, maybe even a little brighter.
He said it almost hurt to look directly at it, but he couldn't
help but keep his eyes on it. It was as big as a basketball
when it began in the southeast, with a tail of fire tapering
away to the east nearly five or six feet long. He watched it
until it disappeared behind a ridge and thick woods at an angle
of maybe 15 degrees above the southwest horizon. He also heard
a "sizzling or whizzing sound" while the meteor was
in sight. Scientists still wonder what can cause this phenomenon.
A few moments later, after his family had joined Harp outside,
a sharecropper farmer who helped with their land joined them
there. At about that same time, they were hit by the sonic boom.
"I've never heard anything as loud in my life," Harp
told me, "not even in the Army in World War II when I was
near cannons being fired. I've still never heard anything that
loud, We all fell to our knees to pray!"... the remains
of the Great Oklahoma Fireball of 1920 are likely still on the
ground where they fell all those years ago. More reports and
eyewitness accounts could be helpful in determining any sites
for possible ground searches....If anyone else finds out more
about this event and would like to share their stories with
me, I'd be very happy to take the reports. Send your new reports
to: Bob Moody, Coleman Observatory, 5533 Wildwood Road, Van
Buren, AR 72956. Bob Moody is a member of the Arkansas-Oklahoma
Astronomical Society. His email is bobmoody{at}aoas.org.
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