March 6, 1999 New Scientist has an article on the re-entry of Mars-96

Joe A. Dellinger (jdellinger@amoco.com)
Sat, 15 May 1999 18:31:14 -0500

	You might want to check out a story on pages 39-42 of the March 6, 1999
issue of New Scientist. The title is "The probe that fell to Earth". The
blurb paragraph is "If a spacecraft carrying a deadly cargo of Plutonium
crashed in a remote area, you'd expect an international search effort to
prevent it falling into the wrong hands. But you'd be wrong, says James Oberg"

	Basically it tells the story of how the Mars-96 probe probably crashed
in the border region between Chile and Bolivia (numerous eyewitness accounts of
the re-entry), and why this wasn't realized for some time (the trackers got the
rocket body and the probe itself confused). The Russians are content to leave
it there (they're broke), and the Americans don't want to go looking for a
Russian probe (at least publically). The plutonium should be well contained,
since it was meant to survive re-entry on Mars, so the probe's plutonium
energy source is likely just sitting there in the Andes somewhere.

	"They (the Russians) admitted that they now believe that the object
tracked on Sunday --- the one that had caused the worldwide panic and warnings
--- was only the inert and plutonium-free fourth stage. As for the plutonium,
all they could be sure about was that it had fallen to Earth somewhere along a
track across the eastern Pacific, right across the middle of South America,
and then into the mid-Atlantic. They could not be any more specific."

	According to the article, Luis Barrera at the Astronomy Institute at
the Catholic University of the North in Antofagasta is collecting eyewitness
reports of a re-entry that probably was the probe of Mars-96. Wonder if he's
heard of this list?