In January the engineers and hobbyists of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society told reporters they hoped to begin dropping bowling balls onto Utah's salt flats from high-flying aircraft. Members were frustrated by their failure to find any meteorite impact sites on the flats, and guessed that the behavior of the bowling balls--whether they punched through the salt crust, bounced, or exploded--would give them a better idea what to look for. A few days later, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management put the plan on ice: it reminded the society of the weather station personnel, race car enthusiasts, and geologists regularly on the salt flats, and said it was a bad idea to drop bowling balls around them.
Source:
Observer [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jan/26/spaceexploration.usnews]
Chicago Reader [http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/news-of-the-weird/Content?oid=911406]
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