"Their sighting was reported in the March, 1904 issue of the Monthly Weather Review by Lieut. Frank Schofield, U. S. Navy. Schofield was not a witness, but he interviewed the witnesses within minutes of the sighting.

"According to the report in the Monthly Weather Review, 2:

"The meteors appeared near the horizon and below the clouds, traveling in a group from northwest by north (true) directly toward the ship.

"At first their angular motion was rapid and color a rather bright red.

"As they approached the ship they appeared to soar, passing above the clouds at an elevation of about 45 degrees.

"After rising above the clouds their angular motion became less and less until it ceased, when they appeared to be moving directly away from the earth at an elevation of about 75 degrees and in the direction west-northwest (true).

"It was noted that the color became less pronounced as the meteors gained in angular elevation.

"3. When sighted the largest meteor was in the lead followed by second in size at a distance of less than twice the diameter of the larger, and then by the third in size at a similar distance from the second in size. They appeared to be traveling in echelon, and so continued as long as in sight.

"4. The largest had an apparent area of about six suns. It was egg-shaped , the sharper end forward. This end was jagged in outline. The after end was regular and full in outline.

"5. The second and third meteors were round and showed no imperfections in shape. The second meteor was estimated to be twice the size of the sun in appearance and the third meteor about the size of the sun.

"6. When the meteors rose there was no change in relative positions nor was there at any time any evidence of rotation or tumbling of the larger meteor.

"7. I estimated the clouds to be not over 1 mile high.

"8. The near approach of these meteors to the surface and the subsequent flight away from the surface appear to be most remarkable, especially so as their actual size could not have been great.

"That they did come below the clouds and soar instead of continuing their southeasterly course is also equally certain, as the angular motion ceased and the color faded as they rose.

"The clouds in passing between the meteors and the ship completely obscured the former. Blue sky could be seen in the intervals between the clouds.

"9. The meteors were in sight over two minutes and were carefully observed by three people, whose accounts agree as to details.

"The officer of the deck, Acting Boatswain Frank Garvey, U.S.Navy, sighted the meteors and watched them, until they disappeared.

"He sent a messenger to me who brought an unintelligible message.

"When I arrived on the bridge the meteors had been obscured for about one half a minute."

(Note: Lieut. Schofield later rose in the ranks to Rear Admiral and was in charge of the U.S. Navy fleet in the 1930's.)

After reading and analyzing this report many years ago, I decided to see if I could find the "original data," i.e., the ship's log, The log is in the National Archives and therein I found this report by Boatswain F. Garvey for the time around 6:10 AM:

"0400 - 0800 Cloudy to fair; light breeze from WSW; at 0600 wind shifted to SW; steaming on course NE(1/4)E; executed morning orders; steam 125 lbs; revolutions 64.6. At 6:10 three large bodies appeared in the sky traveling from NW(1/2)W.

The largest one egg or pear shaped, with sharp point and ragged edge to full body aft. In size it appeared to be six times the size of the sun.

The next one was round and about twice the size of the sun. The third one was round and about twice the size of the sun. They were in echelon when first seen and were below the clouds and travelling fast and rising to directly overhead.

They were dull red in color and were in sight about three minutes. The largest body would cover all of them. When first seen, were like an airship."

The log also contains important weather information: the sky was 90% covered with stratus clouds which were moving from the north. Stratus clouds are sheet-like and typically are lower than 6,500 ft. There was a light breeze and the sea was smooth.

Perhaps the most important information from the log is (a) the duration is listed as about 3 minutes, which means the Schofield did not provide a good estimate of the duration when he wrote "over two minutes," and (b) there was 90% cloud cover, with clouds coming from the north.

Fact (b) strongly implies that these "meteors" were, as Schofield and Garvey both stated, initially seen under the clouds. That would mean they were traveling at an altitude of a mile or less.

Schofield's report is more detailed than the log report because Schofield questioned the witnesses to get more details.

One of the important details is that the angular velocity of the meteors as seen from the ship actually decreased after the angular elevation of the sighting line went beyond 45 degrees.

Furthermore, the angular velocity went to zero as the angular elevation reached 75 degrees and the "meteors" were observed to get continually dimmer as if moving radially away from the surface of the earth..

This strongly suggests that the path of the meteors curved sharply _upward_ and they departed by moving radially away from the ship which they had initially approached.

The seeming change in direction is one reason to reject the meteor explanation for the sighting.

Another reason is the low altitude below the clouds. Any meteor at such a low altitude would be too cool to glow and it would be falling downward to earth, not traveling parallel to the ground).

This is one reason to reject the meteor explanation for this sighting.

This sighting has been mentioned as evidence that meteors can be seen for as much as 2 minutes from a single location on the earth. However, as the following analysis shows, this could happen only under optimum conditions of viewing.

Meteors (that don't reach the earth) burn up at 40-60 km altitude while traveling at high speed along nearly _straight_ trajectories high above the earth, rather than curved paths around the earth, at speeds considerably greater than the orbital speed of earth satellites.

High speed meteors may start to glow at 100 km (60 mi) altitude. If such a meteor were to travel along a straight path reaching a minimum altitude of 50 km (30 mi) directly over an observer and then continue along its path back out of the atmosphere, losing its glow when it again reached an altitude of 100 km, then its straight line path intersecting the upper atmosphere would be about 1500 km (930 mi) long. (A meteor following a slightly curved path around the earth would have about the same path length in the atmosphere).

Using a typical meteoric speed of 20 k/sec (12 mi/sec) I get a duration of 75 seconds.

The minimum meteor speed is for a meteor which slowly "catches up" to the earth from "behind" and then accelerates as it falls toward the earth, reaching about 12 km/sec (7.4 mi/sec) as it enters the atmosphere.

If I use the minimum speed for a meteor I get 1500/12 = 125 seconds or a bit over two minutes.

To see the meteor for this long the observer would have to watch it continually from "turn on" to "turn off" and effectively from "horizon to horizon".

Such an event would be highly unlikely, although not impossible (it would require an observer on a large flat plain or body of water).

This analysis provides yet another reason to reject the meteor hypothesis for the Supply sighting. If the meteors were seen to go from one horizon to overhead, but _not_ to the other horizon, as reported by the Supply crew, then the maximum time of viewing would be 1/2 of the value calculated above, i.e., the maximum viewing time would be about 1 minute.

Hence the reported duration is more than twice what would be expected for the slowest meteor.

This is yet another reason for rejecting the meteor explanation for the U.S.S. Supply sighting.[footnote 1]