Noisy Falling Stars?

Okay, while we are on the subject of celestial objects, here’s a story that comes under the heading of “Ya’ll ain’t gonna believe this stuff”.

When we were kids we would go out in the orchard on the family ranch in Laytonville on the hot summer nights. Usually at family gatherings there were 8 or 9 kids. We would find a nice warm grassy spot still hot from the heat of the day. We would lay on our backs, tell a few scarey stories and watch the night sky. We would tell stories about the big dipper, the north star, the milky way and the moon.

We would keep count the falling stars that we would see. Whoever got to see the first one got to recite the poem “I wish I may, I wish I might, make a wish on the first falling star I see tonight”. You say it your way, we said it ours. Then we would make a wish. The other rule that we had is, that you could never reveal what you wished for. Which made wishing a lot more fun when you didn’t have to tell anybody.

As we counted the stars, whoever counted the most got to win. Of course there were endless arguments over whether or not you reaaallly, really saw one. If somebody was a star behind, and they saw one “Out of the corner of my eye right over there, it was so faint that you could just barely, barely see it, but it was there!” Another kid would say; “Twas not, you cheater” and the argument was on. There was no chance that you could hear anything besides kids arguing.

My uncle, who would be in his nineties now if he had lived. A man who I would trust with my life, anywhere any time. Came out one night and told us about when he was a kid, that he would come out to our spot in the orchard and lay on his back and watch the falling stars. He said that it was so quite when he was a kid that you could hear the falling stars pass overhead. He said that they made a very, very faint hissing, sizzling sound, that sounded like the old 4th of July sparklers that were made out of magnesium powder on a wire. The 4th of July was never over until every little kid had a third degree burn or two from them. And he said that some times you could hear a slight booming sound like far away thunder after a long time, that could have really been far of thunder but he liked to think that it was the falling stars. Remember, this was back before airplanes made sonic booms, so it was strange to connect the phenomenon. But he thought that it was related.

He was sure that the hissing sound came from the meteors because you could hear them go over. In my heart, I know that he actually heard them. Can you explain this to me? Or, have you heard a falling star on a quiet night. This is not a trick or a set-up, but an actual story that my uncle told, and as I said, I believe it with all my heart, but I've never been lucky enough to hear one.