Abstract

In late January 1982, an enhancement in lidar backscatter at stratospheric altitudes between 15 and 20 km was reported by Hirono of Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. Subsequently, a number of lidar investigators reported this new enhancement. Although the Smithsonian Institution's Scientific Event Alert Network (SEAN) had received no reports of a large eruption immediately prior to this time, most lidar researchers believed the new layer's origin to be volcanic. The press, on the other hand, reported this layer over a prolonged period of time, most of late February and early March, as a "mystery-layer" of unknown content and origin that could have been from a nuclear detonation, a meteor shower, or a large volcanic eruption.