Documents / FOIA release
This is a July 27, 2021 FOIA response from NASA's Office of Communications to John Greenewald, Jr. It covers records from Leslie Kean's lawsuit against NASA seeking Kecksburg documents. NASA released 207 pages in full, 7 in part and withheld 31, noting that most of the lawsuit case files had been destroyed under records retention rules. The enclosures include court declarations, a 2003 appeal decision ordering a broader search, a 2019 FOIA response, and Stan Gordon's account of the missing NASA fragology files.
“Headquarters”17 pages
Date: ~ Enclosure 1 A·S1 from, Dhahr~r. EXCERPTS FROM ARAHCO REPORT ON Al-HADJ'DAH METEORITES • • •• The rim of the main crater was quire distinct, its out l ine marked wi th white rock and bl~k fused sil;cai although. northern sector had been drifted over with sand. The crater appears ~h deeper from the ground than tt does from the air; we estimated it to be 25 feet deep •••• •••• The ~teo~lte, which appeared to be nearly pure i r on with a thin, dark brown oxide crust , was in the fann of a shallow cone. The pitted but roughly level top $urf.ce was .bou t three and one-half feet in diameter. As viewed from the side. the iron t~pers to a smooth. blunted pOint. The depth of the cone "liS about 18.2,4 ;n<:he..s. The meteorite is obviously of the "oriented" t)'pe. The blunt point of the cone, or "headll • waC downward, and the iron was immersed fn drift sand nearly to t~ top flat surface. There WOIIS' $CII'Ie" 'l.fs«ct-si'l i Ca- in- tt1\!" vic: i1fi'r;r of -th€ f rM. - tro"r ii~e .-ppare-nfTY· ifl'iiie;';- dlately bene~th it or fn contact with it. Th~ piece was photographed in place and then turned over with the bulldozer and lifted onto the trailer with the Kenworth A-frame. Its weight was later detenmfned to be about 4,$00 pounds, (,;c: 4,800 pounds). Th~t evening Tahir. the Kenworth drt~er. ~'scovered an9ther, apparently unorienled. meteorite southeast of the first location. This wa$ $maller, weigh(ng 470 pounds, and more deeply oxfdt~ed. There was no fused sand nelr it. This was also photographed and loaded ~to the tra i ler. Hadban, OUr guide, told us t hat he and his fe1l0ll! tribeslllen kiic:w of five pieces of iron in all. Two we: had found; but there \oIt!rc three ",ore' ~ he said. These meteorites are said to be uncovered at different tfmes a' the tow dunes InO\'e over them. Hadban showed us two locatiOns, now covered with dunes,; where he had seen irons of about the same size as those we hed alre~dy f~urid. _ ~_ other, much larger, he had heard of but had not seen himself. ' He. had heard his friends describe the location and showeu us where It fs supp~edLto · lie. The following is • lht of the locations of the two recovered: meteorites and approximate locati~s of the three others as pointed out by H.dban. All ~zimuths are magnetic; they and the dl~tan~e~ . rc ~~~ured from the triang~lation stltion on tile mairt crater ri,.. ut) C05 1. To m@teorite found by Abercronbie: azimuth 1960; di5t4nce 383 meters 2. To meteorite found by Tahir: ntmu.th 1]6°; distance 575 IfIeter~ 3~ To reported meteorfte under dune: az i mut h apprOK. 270 0 ; appr ox. dhlan'ce 700 met en 4 . To repartee meteorite under dune: a~i~u t h approx. 337°; ~pprox. distance 900 met~rs LIHl~lrICIAl USE
FOIA release, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 223 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.