I've conducted a search and was unable to find this posted, forgive me if it has been.

Keep in mind too people, UFO means exactly that, an Unidentified Flying Object

Source:

This one page notice appeared in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society vol. 6 Part 1 (Philadelphia, 1804), p. 25. At the time it was written, Thomas Jefferson was president of the Society and also Vice President of the United States. Apparently it was written and submitted by the naturalist William Dunbar, and communicated or presented to the society by Jefferson. Unfortunately, the plate referred to is missing.

...he devoted himself to scientific inquiry, gathering a significant collection of data on Indian vocabulary, as well as using chemical analysis in geology, seasonal river levels, fossils, astronomical phenomena, and utilizing a method of finding longitude by astronomical means.

More importantly, if the observation of the object's size is anywhere near accurate, it was not a meteorite: an object of this size, entering earth's atmosphere at a speed typical of objects falling to earth from space, would probably have left a much larger trace of itself, and would almost certainly have killed the observer and anyone else near the fall. Scientists currently gauge the size of the iron meteor that created Arizona's Meteor Crater, for example, at roughly 50 meters, only about twice the estimate reported by Dunbar.

Further confirmation that this was no meteorite seems to be given by the object's speed. Assuming more or less flat terrain (and though the vicinity of Baton Rouge is considered hilly by Louisiana standards, the State is one of the flattest in the Union and this area is at most gently rolling) and an observer whose eyes were a bit more than 1.50 meters above the ground — the math is here — the horizon is about 4.4 km away. The distance covered by the object within the witnesses' field of vision was thus a maximum 9 kilometers, but probably only about two-thirds of that (since they surely didn't notice it the instant it rose over their horizon, although once they saw it, they must with equal certainty have tracked it to the very end). If, then, it covered 6 to 9 km in something like 15 seconds, it was traveling at no more than 2200 km an hour. This is considerably less than the 11,000 km/h minimum impact velocity of an object freefalling to Earth from space. Furthermore, if we can trust Dunbar's witnesses on the height of the object above the ground, and as he explicitly states, directly above their heads — yet such perceptions of distance against a featureless sky are notoriously subject to error, even among trained pilots — its trajectory must have been far flatter than that of any normal meteor: it was 200 m above the ground and continued to travel at least 6 km (to the horizon, then "a few seconds") before it crashed, an angle of at most 1.9°. He speaks of it, at any rate, as on a more or less level trajectory.

Originally posted by igigi
reply to post by Kayzar

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Mmm... re-read the OP, I think you missed some of the salient points. Yes, it was a sighting by William Dunbar, but.. BUT (wait for it)!: communicated by Thomas Jefferson TO the American Philosophical Society.

EDIT: also, what meteors do you know of described as "to be the size of a large house" ... and "200 yards above the surface of the earth, wholly luminous, but not emitting sparks"?

edit on 10-1-2011 by igigi because: skulduggery.

Further confirmation that this was no meteorite seems to be given by the object's speed. Assuming more or less flat terrain (and though the vicinity of Baton Rouge is considered hilly by Louisiana standards, the State is one of the flattest in the Union and this area is at most gently rolling) and an observer whose eyes were a bit more than 1.50 meters above the ground — the math is here — the horizon is about 4.4 km away. The distance covered by the object within the witnesses' field of vision was thus a maximum 9 kilometers, but probably only about two-thirds of that (since they surely didn't notice it the instant it rose over their horizon, although once they saw it, they must with equal certainty have tracked it to the very end). If, then, it covered 6 to 9 km in something like 15 seconds, it was traveling at no more than 2200 km an hour. This is considerably less than the 11,000 km/h minimum impact velocity of an object freefalling to Earth from space. Furthermore, if we can trust Dunbar's witnesses on the height of the object above the ground, and as he explicitly states, directly above their heads — yet such perceptions of distance against a featureless sky are notoriously subject to error, even among trained pilots — its trajectory must have been far flatter than that of any normal meteor: it was 200 m above the ground and continued to travel at least 6 km (to the horizon, then "a few seconds") before it crashed, an angle of at most 1.9°. He speaks of it, at any rate, as on a more or less level trajectory.