Thanks, Phil. That clarification certainly brings the two explanations closer together. From reading your book, I understood that recombination of ionized atoms was not an issue - the word "ionization" is not mentioned - but clearly it is a crucial factor.

The only significant discrepancy between the two explanations, so far as I can see, is that Beech fails to acknowledge the compression of air in front of the meteoroid (and the creation of an associated standoff shock) as the principal source of heat. Both explanations attribute the light to recombination fo ionized atoms, and both identify meteoroid material (as opposed to atmospheric atoms) as the principal source of that light.

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