On 29 November 1990 the Ulysses spacecraft passed through a series of
interplanetary structures which suggest that reconnection had occurred
on open field lines ahead of a coronal mass ejection (CME), changing
the magnetic topology of the upstream region. We observe in sequence 1
) a heat flux dropout, 2) a region of counterstreaming halo electrons
which does not appear to be a CME, and 3) a region of counterstreaming
halo electrons which is a CME. We suggest an interpretation in which
upstream of the CME Ulysses passed first through a region magnetically
disconnected from the Sun and then through a region magnetically conn
ected back to the solar corona at both ends, both of which were create
d by reconnection of open field lines ahead of the CME. Such reconnect
ion provides a method for producing a heat flux dropout/counterstreami
ng suprathermal electron pair of signatures in interplanetary space th
at has not been previously described.