Michael Crichton on Science today

[AF IDMT]

Originally Posted by x_sf_med

Didn't you know, TS is an alien, he was a subject matter expert for SETI. He lives in AZ because it reminds him of his home planet and Area 51 (where he learned to look and act like a human). He puts the green in 'Green Beret'.

(Gotcha TOP, owe you yet another beer)

That explains so much. . . (If there were a 'duck and cover' smilely I'd use it here_______)

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Greenhat

There are numerous British accounts of that day of darkness in 1908 (oh, and not the same day, the day after). Every English newspaper of the era has the front page devoted to it.

Source documents are useful.

If they are so numerous, please post just one. Again all I could find is this sort of article concerning London, 30 Jun-5July 1908. Thank you.

TS





June 30, July 1-3, 1908. England. We quote from a London cable to the New York Times.

"Several nights through the week were marked by strange atmospheric effects which Dr. Norman Lockyer of the South Kensington Solar Physics Laboratory believes to be a display of the aurora borealis, though personally I have not observed any colored streamers.
"Following sunsets of exceptional beauty and twilight effects remarkable even in England, the northern sky at midnight became light blue, as if the dawn were breaking, and the clouds were touched with pink, in so marked a fashion that police headquarters was rung up by several people, who believed a big fire was raging in the north of London."
(Anonymous; "Like Dawn at Midnight," New York Times, July 5, 1908. Cr. M. Piechota)


And comments like these:

Comment. Actually, all of northern Europe saw a succession of very bright nights beginning June 30, 1908. It was even possible to take photographs at midnight. The cause was not the aurora borealis but rather the Tunguska Event (Siberian Meteor) of June 30, 1908. Of course, Western Europe did not know what had happened in Siberia for years. Terrestrial dust from the Tunguska Event that was blasted into the upper atmosphere or perhaps particulate matter accompanying the impacting object (probably a comet) was apparently the cause of the nightime airglow.

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf121/sf121p12.htm

It's been a while, but I found the information in the New York Public Library (main branch) on microfiche. I rarely expect to find accurate historical information on the Internet.