A method for directly measuring the lifetimes of auroral radar scatterers from continuous wave time series is introduced. This method depends on the sharp phase and/or amplitude changes which occur between individual scattering bursts. Six different periods, with examples of type I, type III, and type IV radar auroral echoes, were examined to find scatterer lifetimes. Two main observations were noted. Frequently, there were scatter signal bursts with no phase or amplitude discontinuities, indicating the presence of only a single coherent scattering region or a small number of such regions. Second, the lifetimes of the scatterers were strongly anticorrelated with their Doppler speeds. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1993