great read there Philip
Aurora's have long been known to create electrophonic noise, specially in polar regions, the sheer amount of people that have heard them is a lot more than for meteors! and aurora happen at similar distances from the ground as meteors
The time I heard/saw the
really good one was during peak of 1998 leonid fireball shower, about 1 am (or 12 in non daylight time), and was a classic earthgrazing, minus good knows what, -15? lol, behemoth that crossed the entire sky overhead, disappeared over western horizon! over the gulf. there was three of us present, and we are all very different people, and we all heard it very very clearly and loudly. Funny thing was it was sparkling like a sparkler visually, and sounding like one at the same time, bizarre.
i have heard one or two very faint sizzles from smaller fireballs, spread over many years.
i know of a near famous electrophonic fireball seen from sa to vic, that actaully landed in vic, famously during the '80s.