Harvey H. Nininger - Meteorite hunter

[Keit]

Found his name while looking for articles on meteorites. Apparently he founded the American Meteorite Museum, which was located near meteorite crater near Arizona, and did quite an extensive research in the area including Kansas. In his time, he was considered to be an expert on the matter. According to wiki:

Harvey Harlow Nininger (1887–1986), American meteorite collector, self-taught meteoriticist and educator, revived interest in the scientific study of meteorites in the 1930s, and assembled the largest personal collection of meteorites up to that time.[...]

Nininger's career as a self-taught and self-financed meteorite scientist and collector was unique. He lived to see meteoritics finally receive serious attention in the earth and space sciences, as he had urged for forty years. Dr. Nininger is considered by many today to be the father of modern meteoritics, having recovered a substantial portion of the meteorites available to scientists today as well as bringing to attention the fact that meteorites are present in great enough concentrations on Earth's surface to actually warrant looking for. Before Dr. Nininger actively pursued his meteorite hunting endeavors, many scientists regarded it as a folly to spend one's time doing so, believing meteorites to be so uncommon as to render searching for them a complete waste of time.[2]

What is interesting that he also talked (and it was mentioned in the several newspapers in the late 50s) about a possibility of a falling meteorite being mistaken for a ballistic missile and triggering a war. Or even being mistaken for a UFO. :) More so, he talked about meteorites dumping tons of dust in the atmosphere (see this article as an example), or see the following abstract (can't have access to the full version)

Falling Meteors Leave Huge Clouds, Nininger Says at Yale Meeting
The Hartford Courant (1923-present) - Hartford, Conn.
Date: Nov 5, 1936
Start Page: 13
Pages: 1
Text Word Count: 205
Abstract (Document Summary)

New Haven, Nov. 4.--(AP.)--Falling meteors leave behind stratosphere clouds, some of them 1000 cubic miles in size, Harvey H. Nininger of Denver, Colo., told the Yale Chapter of Sigma XI tonight in asserting that study of such phenomena indicates "surprising results...

Not surprising, of course, but just another proof that the reality of the threat including its possible effects has been known to the "authorities" for a while now. Also, it is amazing (even if again, not surprising) to see how things like this were published in the mass media, and yet are completely forgotten or buried.

edit: spelling