From: "Christine Downing" <christine-downing-in-charlestown [at] worldnet.att.net>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 15:56:55 -0500
Subject: November, 1966, Leonids in Mojave, California


Notice of a possible meteorite shower was announced in a one-inch paragraph
that day in the Pasadena Star News.
I drove with a friend to a dark side-road, north of Mojave, California  to
view the Leonids in 1966. It was very cold and sharp, and clear. One
pick-up truck passed our car that night, and there was no city light to
disturb our view.

Meteorites began to appear by 10:30 PM; there were about three or four
every five minutes. At the time that seemed extraordinary, but by 12:30 it
was raining stars over the entire sky. We were in a dark, desert valley
bowl, rimmed by mountains; the Sierras were in the west. By 2:00 AM it was
a "blizzard". There was the unnerving feeling that the mountains were being
set on fire. Falling stars filled the entire sky to the horizon, yet it was
silent. If these Leonids had been hail, we wouldn't have been able to hear
each other. If they had been a show of fireworks, we would have been deaf.

We drove south, toward Pasadena, around 4:00 AM and stopped in Lancaster at
the Desert Inn for coffee. People were going about normal business without
apparent astonishment that the sky was falling above their heads (though
suryly they must have noticed before I saw them walking so casually into
the coffee shop). The sky was still "raining" then, though the "blizzard"
had passed. Perhaps it seems commonplace when such a display lasts for
hours; business must go on, the milk delivered, etc. Afterall, who would
believe such a thing, in the daylight, the next morning?

I was gratified to find the "Sky and Telescope" article on the 1966 Leonids
after that. For years it was the only evidence that I had, that anyone else
had seen a "blizzard" of stars that night.