Leonid Meteor Shower With Some Surprises...11/17/99
By Jeff Donn Associated Press Writer
 
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) _ The heralded Leonid meteor shower opened with a trickle for the East Coast Tuesday night, while authorities in parts of the Midwest got panicked calls about fireballs and plane crashes.
 
Star watchers, hoping it would swell later into the most spectacular show of shooting stars in decades, grabbed warm jackets and lawn chairs and headed away from city lights to catch the overture of the three-night spectacle. In Indiana and Wisconsin, authorities told panicked callers not to worry. ``Nothing's falling into Lake Michigan,'' said Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Beverly. ``It's the meteor shower.''
 
In Indiana, the phone at the Madison County dispatcher's office starting ringing with reports of UFO sightings around 7:30 p.m. ``Meteors?'' Anderson resident Mary Redd said later. ``Well, I guess that's better than an alien invasion.''
 
NASA, which sent two airplanes aloft to study the meteor shower from above the clouds, counted up to 40 meteors per hour by mid-evening. Later the count trailed off to 10 to 15 meteors per hour.
 
On the ground, there was little or nothing to see in many places. About a dozen stargazers saw no shooting stars and instead  kept busy peeking through breaks in the clouds with telescopes on the lawn of the Fox Observatory in Sunrise, Fla. ``We got popcorn and hot dogs and a party atmosphere,'' said observatory head Herb Knapp.