Energetic electron fluxes associated with the earth's bow shock are found to be present about as often on the dawn side of the sun‐earth line as on the dusk side. The peak fluxes attained by these spikes also show no dawn‐dusk asymmetry. Upstream electron events, on the other hand, are predominantly found to the dawn side of the sun‐earth line. Both phenomena have the same temporal character with characteristic times of 30 to 150 seconds. Both have characteristic energies of bout 15 kev, but the upstream electron fluxes are much weaker. The upstream events are interpreted to be of secondary origin with the bow shock spikes representing the primary acceleration event. This local acceleration process evidently is of no consequence to the problem of the Van Allen belts and auroral proc