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orology of Veracruz, conducted a careful investigation and collected all of the reports. “This probably was not a meteorite,’ he stated in his official sum- mary. ‘‘We cannot say for sure just what it was. We do know that it did not fall to earth or collide with the earth. “Its trajectory was curved. Imagine a jet or a spaceship suddenly going out of control and plunging down directly toward earth. Then—as if control was regained suddenly—the object or objects suddenly veered away from the earth, only moments before collision point, and went out over the Gulf of Mexico. But I think it did not fall into the sea. It could have gone upward. ““A meteorite would hardly do such a thing.” These peculiar “‘meteors”’ and green fireballs have been turning up in increasing numbers for the past fifteen years. They usually look like the astronomer’s concept of meteors and comets, with a long tail dangling behind, but their maneuvers and the many physical effects accompanying their passage rule out a simple natural explanation. They are far more numerous than the intriguing flying saucer-type reports of metallic circu- lar objects. In fact, the reports of mysterious lights and unlikely meteors form the major body of our neglected “‘soft” sightings. Furthermore, they pop up year after year in the same isolated, thinly populated areas. Natural meteors could hardly be so selective. And meteors don’t change direction or angle of descent. The object seen and photographed over the Northeast in April 1966 had a long corkscrewlike tail. This is acommonly reported feature. There are innumerable historical references to this same identical phenomenon. A member of the North Jersey Highland Historical Society recently came across an interesting meteor report published in The Journal of Thomas Hughes, the daily diary of a British officer who served with General Burgoyne during the Revolutionary War. On page 76 he stated: ‘‘Novem- ber 21, 1779. A strange meteor was seen in the south, just as the sun went down. It appear’d like a ball of fire and left a long trail of light—some- thing like the turnings of a corkscrew—visible for near an hour.” A meteor visible for ‘‘near an hour’! Our nonconforming ‘‘meteors”’ appear repeatedly in places like Ne- braska, Michigan, Canada, New Mexico and Arizona. Professor C. A. Chant of the University of Toronto made a study of a train of meteors that roared across Canada on the night of Sunday, February 9, 1913. Unlike natural meteors, the fiery red objects traveled slowly across the sky ina Charting the Enigma / 133