Seismic and acoustic signals from the 2014 'Interstellar Meteor'

Abstract

We conduct a thorough analysis of seismic and acoustic data from the so-called `Interstellar Meteor' which entered the Earth's atmosphere off the coast of Papua New Guinea on 2014-01-08. We conclude that both previously-reported seismic signals are spurious -- one has characteristics suggesting a local vehicular-traffic based origin; whilst the other is statistically indistinguishable from the background noise. As such, previously-reported localisations based on this data are spurious. Analysis of acoustic data provides a best fit location estimate which is very far ($\sim$170~km) from the reported fireball location. Accordingly, we conclude that material recovered from the seafloor and purported to be from the meteor is almost certainly unrelated to it, and is likely of more mundane (non-interstellar) origin.