It is proposed that, at ultra‐high frequencies, underdense meteor echoes have an effective scattering lengthL, which is much less than a Fresnel zone. Consequently, UHF meteoric echoes may be analyzed in terms of Fraunhofer diffraction theory, resulting in a relaxation of the requirement that a meteor trail be perpendicular to the radar line‐of‐sight before an echo can be received. Formulas for the back‐scattered power, time duration, and echo rate are