Fiery Soviet Space Debris Lights Up Night Sky

    On Friday night, March 25th, the UFO Reporting Center in Seattle, 
Washington received three phone calls from Beaumont, Texas and parts of 
Louisiana reporting a fiery aerial display that turned out to be a Soviet 
satellite re-entry. The following report was printed in the Seattle 
Post-Intelligencer March 26th:

    "Soviet space debris bigger than a railroad boxcar re-entered the 
atmosphere in a brilliant atmospheric fireworks display last night that 
triggered phone calls from curious skywatchers in Texas, Oklahoma, and 
Arkansas."

    "'I saw a meteorite once that was pretty spectacular, but this one jsut 
blew that away. This was the most amazing celestial event I've ever seen,' 
said Chuck Farr, 33, of Round Rock, Texas."

    "'It was part of a package that was sent up a couple of days ago from 
the Soviet Union,' said Lt. Col. Ivan Pinnell, a spokesman for the North 
American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD."

    An interesting sidelight to this story emerged when Robert Gribble of 
the UFO Reporting Center called NORAD to confirm the satellite re-entry. 
After the Major on the Public Information Desk learned who he was and what 
organization he represents, he asked, "How come you guys aren't over at the 
conference in Arkansas?"

    Bob told him that he was too busy to go. "Yeah, we're too busy, too," he 
replied with a laugh.
  

File: REENTY.SAT  1536-T
      06-APR-88
 Dir: 5  Sec: 1 - UFOlogy
From: Donald Johnson
 Acc: 6

Soviet Satellite Debris 3/25/88