Norcatur, Kansas, 1948: explosão no céu, testemunhas, meteorito recuperado e cartas de um civil que imaginou uma nave rumo à Lua

) 0 , . - J1 ~ ~<:JL . Authority: NND 917033

' ED F'L 'Ji-; OBJ~TS l . L'bt 18 Febnlary 1948 101 3; l..o i cn 1 oroatur, ~.,... 5. Oc cupati on of obqo rvor F.di tor " • .-idr ::s of ol' co r vor Horton, K su 7 , Pl a c of ob~ r ~ t i on or catur, Kan s 10 . Ti.,o in c i ·ht N/s 11 . ,di. tt udo 30 - }5 mi.loo above earth l~. S pood N/S .., ,, ir 'i One b ~ explosion - "a!t.erwarde a lot ot little explonons" 16. c:; 11;0 N/S 17 . Col er Bluuh""'ft'hite smoke smwi e l';. O<ior dot votod N/ ,"> 'C . ..pph r unt r.ons r ur.t1,.n Meteor r l. ErJuu.a :;t t r 11s _.,.. Blu1ah-,.iftt e:ooke smudge :On-t.hur conditi ons 14/S r. 23 . Eff t o:. c louds U/ S 24 . Sk ot ch •s or pt t or r .. pts Photo of vapor trail left in sky by 8xPlcs1oo ?5 . Monn1J r of disnpp,Jor nnco Disintecrat1oo 20 . Romnrks : Oscar Monni&, of the Tex 8.8 Observnre, JDB.teur As tronomy, [endereço omitido] , off ers "tanpble proot that u, fir· ball r r -I

., .. • -· of February 18 over ncrtt.ern l\ansas was just t.hat, inasrmch as meteorites have been recovered tron i t. 11 Thore were found , be(;ir nine 1.prU 211, first sever al su.lla fra..,-en:.s JJ) to ore of 4 1/2 pounds . Then a disturl ed spot in a clover f'ield led to "the dii:giI1e up of a r i PC& of so e 109 po\l1llls e edded about two feet in the soil. The st.one i s nhat is tenred aa an "achondrite", a technical name f or an unusual cy-pe or stony m teorite. It is reported t o be of a tYJ hi ch will detAriora~a rapidly. A p otorrHph or t re trail of the meteor, r:l.'.lde by amateur p.otor,r ~her Duane ,I. ~"fr117 of Nortor, shows tho vapor tridl left in the sky by t.he exploaiol"'l of a ~eteor whi ch wa s secl'I 1r Oklahooa, t,ew -exic o, Colorado , Kansas, ard uebr.,~ka . It wu m:.de at. uray 1 s },oae, ni.Je mil,-.s rort·1 or Norton, jlPt tour r.,inutes after the teer XJ loded . A ~r:n.cce of blue￾wliite smoktio remained in the sky £or an hour 1' ebruary Wth . '!'his pboto￾craph is in tile under lri i ent '1101. Furthe r r emarke are contained in supplement .

r (COPY) [endereço omitido] Pueblo, Colorado February 20, 1948 Uffi<•e of the Chief of J tnff u. . ~rrr:, ,ash.in n, D. C. l si ,, in the sky near l!orcntur, ..ans. S1Jbject: L:00 p. n . ('",T) February lt, 19l,it To call at.ten ti.on t.o so peculiarities Purpose: in connection, whe her coincid ntal er not AccordinG to 'Vl AP bulletin appeari"' 1n the Pueblo CHIEFTAIN for Fehruary US , 19116, sone ohj ect was seeu moving eastward across the sky or tt-.n late artemoon of 1" bruary IBth, ard en this UiinG re'lcl ed a po:iition ap1,roxi.mate to l!orcatur, Kansas, c:xploded , or disrupted, or disappeared. The ex￾plosion is said t.o ha· e been terrific. Dir,..ction:i gi.vi::n as to •he prccress or tJ is appearance i n￾rticate Unt it rii< ved from west to east. Information con ,ained in t,hc dispatch under a Denver dateline in1i ·ate that ile mar,y would call this object a bolide - e . , . , expl din meteor - the astronomP.rs of Chamberlin Vbservator y (iJenvor) did not so assess it: it is said in U e dispatch that t se offic1al• could offer no explanation of it. If this 1.s t ca· e, the a ;:,para.nee is anomalous, and may lend 1 tseli to other meteoric expla nation. A sb tch~iaGJ"Bm of t ~ earth and moon I s orbit reveals a pe￾culiarity in coMcction wi tt thP appearance, 1'hich may be &1E;nJ.ficant . Ir a line i s s •r icken r..it r ight- anrl"'s 'lcross the meridio"'a.l position o r the s:ite of expl "'sion r this oeteor at hour argl • fo•ir o'clock (local time) and t ds line be con::idered the west- to-eai:;t cours of thP object, tten it will bo St en t 1at if • iB line i .. c !'It n' d tward ir to 'lpace toward t.ho orbit of t t e moon it will intersect the lunar orbit at a pla nPar to wt re the moon would be at fron 60 to one huncir ed h urs after the explosion t.,ok }lace. Uew moon occ11rrud at 9 0 10 H 2 U Februarn First uurt er at 17D 'H . F'e' ruary - the noon ciov s -i1 I r ox1111ately 12. 5 do rrees per d::i:• alon1~ its orbit.

-------•~----- - It is held by rocketry experts (example, WILLY LEY - see his ROCKE'IS, p. 192, diagram and note in c onnection there￾with) that it wol,ll.d take about 100 hours f or a rocket-craf t to negotiate the di stance from Earth to Moon. Prior to its ~xplosion over Norcatur, this object of Feb. 18th was variously reported as a "falling plane", a " jet plane", and a ''ball of fire 11 • It is said by some to have l eft a trail of smoke behind it. It is the suggestion of this writer that the Army collect am assimilate reports on this object , with a view t o determining where it was seen as an object trailint: smoke and llhe re as a ball of fire. If this thing is a r ocket of some kind headed for the moon, it might first have been seen as a streak of sr.oke, then later as a ball of fire , and lastly as a tremendous ex￾plosion when it at last reached sufficient speed and eleva￾tion for take-off. The writer has in mind the various and unexplained r e1.,orts on "!lying saucers", and bases this speculation upon a lonb c onsideration of various oddments of reports whose significance might be of epace-craft f r om other worlds of space. The so- called "meteori c procession" which crossed Tor ont o in February 1913, consisted of a number of u oups or illimunated bodies traveling in v oups of thre e an:l moving in "rigid formation", all pursuing a course acr oss the same streak of the earth's surface . J.r a line is proj ected backward along ·t his line of fli ght it will be seen that this line "comes out" at the position of the moon at the time. The 1913 phenomenon occurred in the mid-period of a series of reports on dirigible aircraft of appearance like zeppelins which were seen over :&, gland an:i whos e appearance terminated - or reports on the appearances stopped - j ust prior to the inferior conjt.mction of Venus of April 24, 1913. The writer begs to call attention to the f act that the times prior to and just after inferior conjunction of Venus are prolific in r eports of strange t hings seen i n the sky. Also t }at lights have been r eported on t he moon from time to time, back f or at l east a century. Ir in thr future of mil itary experiment the moon is selected as a base for the launching of r ockets (which has been suggested by some writers), it may be wel l to look first 2

- i·1to •·er orts like Vis one or1 Lhe explosion ovf"r Norcatur aw1 1.hc dit·PctioT' 1)1' the nhject in•,olved . Tl·ere is n r,os:,i. bilitv, 1 O\-rev"'r r cMote this r:iay seem, that tlte moon is e· ther inrabited or in use b:v other ti an hlll"lan he: t1 ;S . .1.011rs , /s/ N)Pl.\AN GARRETT !.lARKHAM It ma~, do not harm tn ,Tatch the moon for possible arrival of t .1 s thi ng in the quarter a t ~o to 100 101.1r fi after "its uepar·tur e" . lJG!.1 3 IJ

... (COPY) FILE REF: - SIGGE-U-1 From: To: • Subject: Purpos-e: ' .I.larch 14, 1948 Norman G. Uarkham [endereço omitido], Pueblo, Colo Chief ~ignal Of ficer U. s. Army, ,ashington, D. C • Norcatur, ~s., sky explosion of lS February, 1946 To shc,,r a speculation regard￾ing tho above phenomenon and another one of earlier date and to call attention to occurrences between the two which have an appearance of relationship whether coinci￾dental or not. The geographical position of the Norcatur explosion s uggests possible linka.!;8 with other occurrences happening inside latitooinal limits arbitrarily demarkable between 43° 361 North (which is the latitooe of Ooise, Idaho) and 36° 101 North ( the latitu:ie of Nashville, Tenn.)., a belt about 485 miles wide. 'lbis suegestion is gained from positions given for occurrences happening between June 24., 1947 and February 18 , 1948, as s hall be hereinaft er briefly described, THE OOISE (Idaho) OBJECT- This was seen either beginnin{.! or ending at 330 pm 24 June 1947 am was visible for 20 minutes. It was in the western sky, was of comet-li~ appearance, and settled gradually toward the horizon ae planetary bodiea set. It was seen bo.r Lt. Gov. Whitehead •u)j Chief Justice Lartpert. Its nature was unknmm . The peculiarity which connects this object, for speculative purposes, with the explosion of some unknown object over 1~orcatur, Kans ., on 18 l!'ebruary 1948 is the seeming of a relationship between the positions of the moon for the two phenomena: In the form2r case the moon was at the date of phenomenon, about 7%, 63 before the positionof First Quart er; on the second case i t was about 8%. 73 beyotxi the position of first quarter. Since the Boise object was visible for 20 minutes be fore it sank this argues it was about ten deil"ees above the horizon when fi?1J t seen. Now if a line be dra1'l'l westward and at ten degrees zenithward from the l : , " \

horizon of Boise at 3:30 p . m. and another l ine be dra"'ft'll from tbe position of the o oon a t one hundred hours before the s ighting of the Boise object, and projected to t he center of the earth, it will be seen that this ten￾degrees-altitude and the moon-earth line intersect as a place tar above a geographical position considerably to the west of Cape Bla11ce, in the neighborhoodof about 700 miles off the coast. The Boise object in its appearance suggests a rocket-type ar craft possibly using r eaction blasts to brake itself down for a landing on the earth. The brig"lt point and plumy tail of the de scription suggest this, as also its apparent fixity in space. HOLLE' S 11SHIP Ir F1J\MES" - Nine days after the siehting of the Boise object a forest lookout named F..arl Holle saw at or soon after 4:00 p .m. , 3rd July, 1 ,47, something he took to be a "tanker in flame s" . This was seen horizon-ward f r om a point 1n Sonoma Gounty, Cali fornia , n ear to Fort Roos. A search waR inst:!. wted by the Navy or Coast Guard, and nothing was foum . Tho s ov;et tanker ELBRUZ , w'1idl had been in t.he vicinity, was quer i.ed a rd found to b~ all right. This was not explained. Ir this apperance had been on the horizon, there is no telling how far it may have been from the observer. CAPE MENDOCINO BLDAP H'CIDENT - Hot far from the l ocati on of Holle 's "burnini; ship" an accident occurred to a navy blimp, 14 July 1947, off Cape t,1endocino. This blimp soodenly settled into the water, slipped out its crew and rose ai;ain. '1110 anoMaly here is that one would not expect to find drastic do'Tm-<:lrafts of such violence as to thus upset a lighter than air craft. Possibly a dovmdr:ift accounted ror t ~ accident - but if the Signal Officer will look up the incident of the British steamer Talma w',ich, at the time of the sighting of a luminous wheel- like phenomenon in the Gulf of Llartaban, reported a slowinr: of the engines from some unknO\m cause, it may be seen that possibly forces are ,-:enerated in son:e manner by certain unk11own ohjects at time s in t he or ean, which may have physical attraction for materj al objects. 1'1is blimp aceidP.nt occurring in waters where occnrred othPr phenomena shortly to be mentioned, seems to have a doubtful side t.o it. TI 1E OAKIAIID ODJ"EX;T - !!.arly on the mor ninc; of 13th Octob0 r, 1947, a photographer named Hen Dobus togehter with a taxidriver named A. J. Goldman saw a thing "that looked like Saturn with a rinc around it." lt shot at terrific speed WEST,7AfID across the sky of the Bay area, anci was seen shortly after midnight. 2

This may have been heading in the general direction of what may ha ve been the goal of two later objects which r oughly resemble it in description. THE TICOODEROGA OBJEC'IS - According to the tanker Ticonderoga's secom officer, two "nyinc discs" were seen heading SOU'IHWE:3T when the ship was in 43 degrees fifteen minutes north and 124 degrees 54 minutes west, at 0620 GCT, 12th November 1947. These may have been heading f or the object seen in the Pacific off the Golden Gate, not long afterward - or possibly at the same time, if earlier reports on this are consulted. • .THE PHAN'IOM REEF - On November 24, 1947, the Navy denied that it had found a phantom reef or other obstruction to navigation at a point about 4oO miles west of San Francisco. TM Navay Survey ship MAURY, s ent out there in r esponse to reports of ships that some hugh object had been seen in the water in that neighborhood , reported that when in the approximate 1 titude and long:1.tu:ie of the supposed obstruction they picked up an echo from soll8thing in the wa+.er 16oo yards f rom the ship; but that Tfhen they had steamed to within 4oo yards of this, the echo vanished. There seems a possible connectability between the various elements so tar considered. Later on January 7, 194.S, there were occurrences in the neighborhood o! \filmington, o ., Ft. Knox, Ky., Franklin, Ky., am Nashville , Tenn., all of which must be now familiar to the archivists of the Signal Office. Something like a "fl¥ing disc" was pursued by one Lt. Mantell arrl two other pilots, ~antel being killed while in the process of att empting to gain altitooe to get close to whatever it was he was chasing. Also, in this connection , it may not be amiss to mention the deaths of two military officer& ,mo were said to have been bringing back material evidence from "flying discs" one of which was said to have met with some kind of accident over .14aury Island, Puget Sound, around June, 1947. It Will be seen on inspection that the geographical locales of these incidents fit inside the belt of latitu:ies hereinbefore mentioned. 'mE NORCATUR EXPLOSION was described in a previous letter of this writer, an:i it was shown in that letter that a line tangential to the meridian of Norcatur, Kans ., at hour-angle 2:20 p.m., would if con￾tinued outward into space to the orbit of the moon , intersect the moon's orbit at a point where the moon would have been at about 100 hours after the time of the explosion. According to r ocketry theory, it would take a reaction-propelled craft of the rocket type about 100 hours to reach the moon. ! p

, . . ! sub,i.t there is n likelihood t.hn t. on .J1u11,1 2!,, 19!17, ~:mn,•thini; like a sp:icc-sl i• ca• , l •~e from the r10011 and 1won Februar:· 1g, 19hS, returned to • hP. J'!IOnn . 'M1is is of ~ r.;n spcculill.i 'ln . 8•11. has ., nyone :,,,t, cxplatnel t.ho ' 1fl·:int; disc:. 11 in ter1:1s of all th~ p1•etty-well proven fa<" ts in conuccti on vrith t.t,om? lla!l an·,one vet devised .s fuel powurful enough t o k~ck , r ocket !"rom ,-.1rt!. to l.o !.!0011? Th"'re la·~ beer hw lreus o!." reports, durlnc the pnst century, on oc~ 1rr,•nces which implv this world is visited from outside space. Alis, nee ,,f c..r1tact hy these po11tul-itahle visiting entiti,•s ma.v imply a st.ate of C)t lt.urt? frir beyond ours, to the point ffh(?l'e it wo11l.d be inP.X￾pediPn t. !'or th.,i r ·.,.obers to han. to do "ith us en-r.iasse. lhese reports hive navPr Ileen seriously considered by science, wh ich in general il?)'lore~ them . Howevr•r, acco!'dir,1 .o Dr . Rocr.t of Chamborlin Obsnrvatory, Jenver, there is not ,int ir. astr or~or.iy to expl ain the thing which expl oded over Norcatur. Jr. Ninin11 e r 1 s idea that t.he thint wa~ a meteor fl:ltly di3rei:;ards Dr. Rocht ' s opinion, wl it-h may have been based on the Jknver losts • statement that a nver ll'l"l'11.n saw t..he "orc:itur object twenty rninutes before the eXt,losion occurred. I sub, .l t th·,t the rmy needs men who are capable or r ecoenizing Un anomalies beforeri,•n tioMd when they OC"ur , evenif only to aid in s ecula tion r egarding tnm . The und,-rslrned off~rs his ser Jices to +.J1at erd, if t.he Arr,y may wish to avail itself of tl·em. /s/ N. r.. rtARKJ.IAM 4

a ,a . Excerpt of letter dated April 11, 1948 from Dr. Lincoln LaPu, Director, Institute of Meteoritics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the Deputy Executive Director, Committee on Geophysical Science~, Research and Development Board: Thank you for the surprising documents sent roe under date of March 3(). As you remark, certain aspects of Markham's letters a re fantastic (for example: (1) the fir~ball procession of 1913, February 9, waa genuinely meteoric, although a rare type of chain fall; (2) no astronomer could take seriously Markham's 11 invasion by beings from Venus or the Moon"­ theory: <,) he appeals to, and biases in his favor, such untrustworthy evidence as newspaper stories, e.g., the absurd statement attributed to Dr. Rocht of the Chamberlin Observatory) . Nevertheless, Markham is justi￾fied in calling attention to certain incidents as tD1explained, for example, the 11flyin6 lenses" (in my opinion 99% hoax and imagination and 1% r eal). As r egards the Norcatur, Kansas incident, I remain convinced t hat, like the Four Corners incident, it was a genuine meteorite fall, although one of exceptional size (again like the Four Corners fall). Hovrever, there are many curious aspects of bot h these falls, some of an objective nature, like the singular fact that in spite of intensive searches (ad￾mittedly tmder bad terrain a nd weather conditions), not a t race of meteoritic material has so far been found; some of a non-objective nature, like the amazing testimony given by Mr. Leland Sammons, Mr. Alfred Gle:m, . and other witnesses of the Norcatur incident, both to members of the State H1gtiway Commission of Kansas and to l nstitute of Meteoritics field survey parties. (See exhibits A, B, am C enclosed.) Some comment on such testimony as appears in 1i.,B, and C would seem desirable: 1 . Glenn first reported the battery case as red hot. hhen I pointed out that the pa·'er on it was not charred, his account was changed to "too hot to handle". The Institute of Meteoritics party found only two men, not four, who saw the battery case fall. The battery case '1as been examined by Dr. 1 1ictor Regener, Department of Physics, University or New "'exico, who stat.es that it appears to be identical witn the small batteries used in portable radios. 2. K. Hays ' identification of the Norcatur object as a rocket has the following support: On the morning of February 19, I talked to the to,rer man and two assistants at the Air Base at McCook Field, Neb!'aska. All three denied the Norcatur object was a fireball and described it as a filack object with an extremely bright jet of flame pouring out of t he rear. Furthermore, a l h-year old, and presumably unbiased, schoolgirl in Oberlin, Kansas wrote me a similar description of the "Fireball." l

3. A detonnined ettort is umer way to chock up on Sammons ' veracity ( and sanity!) I hove neither seen nor talknd to -'aMnOna, but another Qlllber or he Institute of J.lcteoritics pnrty (Dr. D. M. Gragg, an Instructor in the epo "t.l'tent or Mathematics) l'mO did so believes Samons (who is a well- to-do !armor ) to be sincere am very b~ly scared . Or course nearness to a bi& 111eteor1te fall would scare one as b:id~ as an atom bomb; but •1ow could it produce such testimony as morns" . The 11mP.te itic" incidents fr the great fall ot 1~5, >veraber 29 (from "1ii ch no meteorites have been recover ed eithP.r !) throuih tho sequonce of ai ilar falls culminating in the Four Com~rs and 'lorcatur inci~ents, coupled With .,uch t incs as the Ussuri incident, convince me that ei. t 11er t 1.3 earth 1:; unrfer a rro--• nusual cosmic bombardNnt or t"18TIY ot the fireballs are not meteorites at all. While I still cling to the 1D1Jteoritic h:,pothes1!1, it is clear that which evP-r Alternative is tie ri,1lt one, t he situation c-ries alou::t for thoroll(;h i nvestigation. ..

- - - - - - - - - ------ ··~, t Tl(> " .... 1. ni .1. liv•• 11 u ! ... l n rt. c; •• l wao s·~,,1 lis ,. Of• .r C'l' 0 ._, ('0 uho,.rt. 100 I • rn • a i't.f> 1• 1r! m1c-l! ar I t hn l l lo rn1:n'i ',f!\•1:1rd 1 ,, 1m1"'P fi f' :·1 ,·1 w·1. r .. 1 I!' r i :11· i s l J\T• r rir, .' u.. . a hovC' h• . f! . l r. t ,a1· ➔• c, • ·u I :i• tl,11 J0,7C'l'Cd n•.r•· 41 c r r'I t'IO f 'ht• lnu!e 4 ·tr~ •·' 1 r•111i. 11a '.lr•nvl)r:vr.-.,rit,a1rcxim1tel.r6 1 ·:...,Pt it. •1, 1>u1t, Lvt•l w1tt. my fac,•, and ,iust ,wthl"I a:n11rcl for an ii: a1·. , f di,· ut. r 1.t .ind .uc:kin 1:ick ·n . 'lhe t.t.in!'wa:; ah ut I.' lc,n , 1 r.11 t,1 11 !' 1 i ;f ·1 fur , 1 . 7hrar1.• v..i:, a J•l! •' r,t,j cld 11·, lt.o ·1c-l • i , r.:e as t 1·1 I b J. d ar0 .llid, !,he J ip,• r1as :,'l,i dd, · 1·i ti l. ~ t r.i l:.1 11 • J1d I, J) f,hcru • U!.J a lot. o•· -:parks shol'rer "'d fr m i1. , an I •.I .. fli·e ii c.:r..asvd :; if a f11~1: 1,1i°(hf, hava ll{~ht,ed , a tel it took off in a nort-.1 -wos1er·l:, dlrt·cti ,r1 VPr~ fHs'., aininr c1ll,ita!e as it we11t . Uy wife hr•ard it, lt=!'lVe and 1 .1 1,.rt w , l'f: 1 st, n,J, :md we wntchP. ! it • , , le vinr .:i tra U nJ' nmokn ,11 t! e wa_•, . ·••l le ly U,c-r,, was a {,'l'fl,i t. cloud uf' s .oke in t.l.e sl<y , r ot mor o tt an ho n, conrls '1ft ,. it L- rt my y·IJ"d . anrl it a few ~,ec011ds or rr.ore, we heard an e:qlt,:-;ion. I 1.rt>n s1.epo,J uff from :Jt'l 1,01.1..cie tc- vtlr•re it. narl 'een , .:mi it was five s+.e1s . cs, it ,1a: h ut., 1 c·,ld reel tt,,,. rear t'r •r.ii1. . Harl lnot bf,en :a:c;t i1 ,_. 1,v C"a r 1rior to t,ht> vccur:rt1nce , wettir t t..he i,;round , t..hf're would lia ve been a harr• spot in the yard wher < tJ1e t' in~: start ed up heeu t~c 1.hcre was a [~(•'lt rusll f fire fr,7. it v,J.en it left . It must h:ive heen q,nte lj .h 'lien u ,..x· lcued. i<rmnct.h •·a.r.:, s, n of Flo·,d ltw-::. , [endereço omitido]. At ah,-ut. c:; to c, :;o l . 1-t.• , not sur e of time, wa!: r di,: is hor se i.r a 1-t·,st,..n·e, \'ften he 11eard s<.,r.!tttin1 quner int.he sky . I ookin, 'J} to ,.,. south -west, 1~ .,av, wl a1. ;ippearcd tr f im t.o be a r c,cket, just li ,e ~,. h·,d seen !·i.rin,• the war in ...uror,e. l 1, startl ed ,im, and he j111,11cd ,""Jff the 'or::ie . "a t.h1.:n r er101u1t,cd, 11ntcl;ed itc:: cowse, alrr.ost on a lir P-1 hut lns· ni; Hit ide a lii ,le, anrl i1 then expl oded with a bir cloud of smoke , c.11 pnr entl;: ov , r 1\0:rton , from i·,1,ere he vra~, south of 1- rairie Vievr. JI., rc<le or, t oward hnr:,,,. ,'? wa_·fi , w en c..udcle-,lv t he sound and jar of t he explosion I r eadied i,, . I rs. l'nrs v,a:-; hone in tl e 1ous o , when s he heard and relt SO!'Y t..hing likn a trud· mi1; 1 t h::ive struck the house. ,>he ran out of the l•ouse and t. ~.en fit-r.t saw t.he h11,se clo1x:f ,f SMOl.:E' . ·,bout 110 minutes lnter, a part of t,he sr.ioke cl ou1 lirf'ted d ir, ctl y over thei r ho11se, and went on east ovor 1-hil l iJ sburt:• 11-aJ.J.h 'JP.w, J,ostm·!ster a1. Lor catur, s1, at,ed that at. about l~ : 50 l-' . 1.!. he was standinb j ust inside t.he front wir.dow of the rost.offi ce in Nor c'ltur, when l,e observed a blindir ., flash as if someone had taken a flashliJ ht pie ture. dP. could locate no one wit1J a camra, but noticed several men walkint; t,o the c,•nter o.f t i e s treAt and lookinc up. Ye ti.en walked out t,o where t,hey nere and looking up, saw a high cloud of smoke i n t he sky almost diredtly over head

but slightly east. Suddenly, about 1 anct 1/2 minutes after e }ad seen the flash, there was a terrific explosion an1 jar, shakinc the vrotmd and causine the windows all around to rattle. Following the explosion, there were several low reverberating rumblil'lgs across the heavens . He stated that tho explosion must have been very high. Edgar Younr:, 1 \>0y living at Regar, just east of Horcatur, was outside the ele~ator, when he observed the eXJ losion, looked up and saw the huge clotd of smoke . He stated that it 11as almost overl.ead but slightly west of hiJ!I. He said that it was a bif explosion. The elevator man was out in the elevator, 1'hen he heard the e.xµlosion . He t ought th~t his oil-burner had exploded in tho office and ran in to see about it. Fi.ndinr, i• O. K., he ran outside to see what had exploded, saw the big clo1.rl of ~moke hir;h overliead, slightly west. Ea, tern Kansas newspapt!r carried a story about 6 days aco of one just like this one, coming from the south to vicinity of Iola, ~ansas, where it turned west and disappeared into the sky. Check with Chief Scott of Norton about a bum~d flashlight b~ttery which fell in the street of Norton just after the explosion. It was too hot to be picked up for sevoral minutes. Chief Scott has it. Note : A copy of Exhibit 11 c11 referred to in letter fron Dr. LaPaz, was not received.