LE
AHTI
SCIONE^ /S&TFOCAL POINT by William Simmons
when I asked if anyone had reported
an incident in the sky. No, they hadn’t.
The next day I called the Minor Planet
Center in Cambridge and spoke with
its director Brian Marsden. He directed
me to the Smithsonian’s Scientifi c Event
Alert Network. When I phoned them,
they suggested I call the North Ameri-
can Aerospace Defense Command.
“Are you kidding? Isn’t NORAD top
secret?”
“No, it’s not. Here’s the number.”
When I called NORAD, a male voice
asked, “What time did this happen?”
About 8:30 p.m., I told him. “What
direction did it come from?” I described
it as best I could. I could hear his key-
board clicking. After a few moments of
silence he said, “You saw the re-entry
of the Soviet launch vehicle that carried
Kosmos-1873 into orbit on August 28th.Who Ya Gonna Call?
One summer night, the author saw a huge explosion
in the sky. He had to tell somebody, but whom?IT STARTED INNOCENTLY ENOUGH.
I was home alone about 8 p.m. on a
warm September 1, 1987. The family
was at the mall collecting last-minute
items for the impending school year.
The Moon, just past fi rst quarter, hung
in the southwest sky, so I decided to do
some viewing with my new 10-power
binoculars.
I mounted them on a tripod and
climbed onto a fl at section of our roof.
I extended the tripod legs to the max so
I could remain standing, and I began
observing the bright lunar surface.
When the Moon began to set below the
treeline, I decided to pack it up.
Just then my eye caught a fast-mov-
ing orange object in the northwest sky.
At fi rst I thought it was a satellite, but
it was moving way too fast. I struggled
to get it into view in the binocs, but the
tripod kept interfering. When, down on
one knee, I fi nally caught it in the lens,
it was high overhead, and it was trailing
a long, orange tail of sparks.
That’s when it exploded in a spec-
tacular display of fi re and smoke and
debris. It reminded me of the tragic
explosion the year before of the Space
Shuttle Challenger, with pieces fl ying off
in all directions. I braced for the sound
but then thought, No, shock wave fi rst!
Four very bright objects had darted
out from the fi reball, and they con-
tinued moving to the south-southeast
very slowly and all in a vertical line. I
watched them for about two minutes
until they blinked out over the hori-
zon. There had been no shock wave, no
sound, no debris.
What the hell did I just see?
My heart racing, I looked at my
watch. It was 8:40 p.m. Feeling I just
had to tell someone, I called our local
paper in Springfi eld, Massachusetts.
The voice on the other end snickeredWe’ve been tracking it.” It was projected
to re-enter the atmosphere over eastern
Canada on the 1st, he said, and any
solid remains would splash down in the
Caribbean Sea east of Puerto Rico at
8:38 p.m. “You are the only confi rmed
sighting. Thanks for calling in.”
I was stunned. I called the Spring-
fi eld newspaper again, repeated my
story, and gave them NORAD’s number.
“You can call NORAD?” I assured the
reporter she could. The paper printed
the story the next day.
The day after the piece appeared I
received a call from a guy in Springfi eld.
He said he and some friends had just
fi nished a night softball game on the 1st
and were in the parking lot having a few
beers. They saw something in the sky
but didn’t want to say anything because
they’d been drinking. Besides, they
didn’t know whom to call. I’m glad they
called me. At least someone else saw it!¢BILL SIMMONS is a retired profes-
sional fi refi ghter/EMT and U.S. Army
veteran who served in Korea and Green-
land. He and his wife Kathleen live in
Easthampton, Massachusetts, and have
eight children.84 NOVEMBER 2019 • SKY & TELESCOPE