Dr. Impact huh? Haven't seen you here before. Just come to get in on the action or too chickenshit to use your usual handle and ISP.

EP may have tunnelvision and blow the NEO threat out of proportion in terms of the timescale upon which they occur. I find him personally irksome because of his anti-Mars rhetoric but certainly he's entitled to an opinion. He's easily irritated and has his eccentricities, but lets face it folks, that alone doesn't set him apart on this BBS

Having read the infamous article, all I see is classic EP. I found some comments, observations and excerps quite informative. As always, there is his unwavering focus on NEO detection and his antipathy for Mars.

What really irks me is the playground type atmosphere that has developed here where people are falling over each other to toss a dig at EP in what seems to me as some kind of "lets pick on the strange (doesn't conform to conventional modes of thought) kid" meanwhile reinforcing the feeling of community and actively avoiding the antagonisim of the "pack" and it's alphas.

I'm certainly not an expert in this area but I know this, I've yet to see any argument that clearly refutes his list of impacts/airbursts that is to his credit peppered with sceptical question marks.

I don't think I'm out of line here. I didn't write this mad and I've given it considerable thought over the past day or so. I guess I could be too eager to accept his dire prognosis. Admittedly, I've been aware of the interaction of the Earth with space chunks of whatever since I was younger and much more impressionable.

In 1972, my Dad was working outside in Missoula, Montana U.S.A. when the daytime fireball immortalized by the movie filmed in Grand Teton NP passed overhead. In the depth of the cold war, his first assumption was that it was some kind of nuclear delivery to Malmstrom, AFB and the surrounding missle silos. The fear this possibility cultivated may explain his solemnity upon recanting the story to me as a young child.

More recently, I witnessed the meteor that paralleled the Rocky Mountains heading south in the U.S. which detonated over Arizona in August, 1999. It was such a large event that it seemed to me, driving south from Boulder, CO to have impacted just over the foothills, a couple of miles away. The flash was such that it back lit the Rockys, leaving a standing impression in my vision.

Ok, that was a tangential rift.

Anyway folks, I guess thats all I have. Just take a deep breath, sit down and relax, pour one or roll one and mellow out. If you wan't to discuss space, I just hope it's the region outside the exosphere and not the one between your ears.

Bracing for impact (typed that is)....

ectoterrestrial

P.S. look here if you want to know what I really think.