CompuServe Messages

Hi, Al– Write letters to the editors of any and all magazines meteoritophiles are likely to read, mentioning this forum and the rocks-and-fossils mail-list. I lured a number of people here by writing to Mineralogical Record, Rocks & Minerals, the UV Waves (newsletter of the Fluorescent Mineral Society), the Friends of Mineralogy newsletter, and so on. I made no special mention of meteorites, and did not send to publications specialized for such. I emphasized the virtues of this mode of communication, such as the cheap, fast, and easy way you talk to Hawaii, Europe, and wherever. A couple of years back, I watched in Astronomy forum as people reported a great fireball that ran up the east coast. They were comparing TV news reports to winnow out a lot more truth than the reporters had a handle on (in the discussion I learned of the Draconid/Giacobinid shower, one I had not heard of), and by comparing reports were actually zeroing in on the landing area until a TV report was relayed that a fragment had trashed some person's Volkswagen – they might have actually located the zone to search even if the meteorite had not "announced" its landing in the news. A few tales such as that may convince fence-sitters that this medium can make new things possible. –Doug