JEFF SCHWEERS
Florida Today
Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:58 EST
Minutes before she sat down to watch television Monday night, Marcie Kinney was beckoned by her husband and son to step outside of their Grant-Valkaria home.
A red fireball streaked across the sky from west to east just above the tree line.
"Look up! Look up!" they shouted. It only took seconds for Kinney to run into the yard, but the fireball was already dropping out of sight over the horizon.
"It was coming straight down, leaving black wisps of smoke," she said.
Mark Howard, director of the Brevard Community College Planetarium, said it's likely that Kinney saw a meteor, possibly one from the little-known Quadrandit meteor showers, which peak on Thursday.
Terry Oswalt, a professor of physics and space sciences at Florida Tech, agreed that what Kinney and her family saw was likely a pea-sized meteor or a piece of space debris.
The Earth is constantly bombarded with thousands of chunks of cosmic debris the size of sand granules, Oswalt said. About once a night, something as big as a pea called a bolide and large enough for a casual observer to see with the naked eye shoots through the sky.
"That may have been what she saw," he said.
Oswalt was taking his garbage out around the same time in his Suntree neighborhood but didn't see anything.
Explosions from outer space
Laurel Stowell
Wanganui Chronicle
Sat, 30 Dec 2006 12:03 EST
WHEN a series of monstrous explosions shook inland Waverley one July afternoon, farmer Jim Ross thought a plane had crashed.
The big bangs happened on July 7, 1999, just after 4pm, and a report on the unusual astral event was issued last month by Jennie McCormick of Auckland's Stardome Observatory.
The phenomenon was caused by a meteor - a piece of rock left over from the formation of planets - entering Earth's atmosphere.
Just after 4 o'clock on that July day, Mr Ross had stopped his motorbike on Kohi Rd, about 4km inland from Waverley, to talk to a neighbour.
"Firstly I heard a big bang, then a whole lot of crinkling noise like someone screwing up silver paper.
"The next thing I remember was a monstrous bang, a huge explosion. It was just unreal."
The shed where his daughter was milking shook and his dogs "went practically straight through a boxthorn hedge". Through the cloudy sky above him came blue smoke, which hung around for about two hours.
He rang the Wanganui police and told them about the explosion.
They were inundated with 111 calls, and went searching as far as Waverley, Waitotara and Brunswick.
"The next moment the Waverley fire brigade trailed by with about 30 cars behind it. They were going up the road expecting to find a plane crash," Mr Ross said.
A kilometre north-west of Waverley, farmer Grant Hughes was riding his quad bike just after four on that afternoon. He saw a bright flash in the sky, followed by a huge explosion.
"The pressure waves from the explosion physically forced me hard down on to the bike, not once, but twice. I have never known or felt anything like it," he said later.
Other Wanganui and South Taranaki observers reported a smoky, sulphurous smell, terrified animals, earth tremors and heat hazes.
A pair of Mowhanau Beach walkers found live shellfish at the water's edge three days later, which may have been related to the pressure changes caused by the explosions.
They were seen by people from Auckland to Nelson and more than 100 people, from Northland to Canterbury, saw the meteor shoot southward across the sky. They described it as a bright silver/yellow/red/orange/blue/violet/black object with a long, fiery tail.
The explosion was described as a flash of blinding light from which a vivid blue-and-white compact cloud emitted leaf-like objects.
The cloud hung in the sky for at least 40 minutes.
Staff from the Auckland observatory came south to interview people who had seen the meteor explode, and Mr Ross helped them to find witnesses. There were 115 written reports, audio and videotape and seismic records.
The United States Defence Support Programme also recorded information, but says this is classified.
The Chronicle published a photograph taken by Gordon Gwilliam, of Wanganui.
Waverley dairy farmer Greg Brown had a T-shirt printed, and Waverley's Clarendon Hotel held a meteorite night and invented a new drink.
Mr Ross has been sent a copy of the observatory's final report. He supplied it to the Chronicle and wanted to share its findings with local people who saw the fireball. The astronomers at the observatory were deeply envious of the experience, he said.
He was told: "You people down here don't really comprehend what you've heard and seen. People like us would give our lives to see something like that."
The observatory's report became the cover story in an international journal.
It says there has only been one other daylight fireball with lots of witnesses. That was in January 1996 and there were no reports of it exploding.
Similar incidents at twilight and at night occurred in New Zealand in 1933 and 1929.
"The Taranaki Fireball is the only fireball to have been observed and reported by numerous witnesses across the North and South Islands of New Zealand," the report says.
Those observations, with seismic records, enabled astronomers to pinpoint a few facts about what happened.
They concluded that the meteor entered Earth's atmosphere northeast of the North Island. Its speed has not been determined, but was probably as high as 15km per second.
It detonated in a series of three explosions at 4.14pm, at a height of about 32km.
According to the report, the detonation happened approximately above Rawhitiroa, about 8km east of Eltham.
The explosion is estimated to have had the energy of at least 300 tonnes of TNT.
The sonic boom was heard as far away as Turangi and Bulls and variously described as like artillery fire, hissing, backfiring or rumbling thunder.
The seismic shockwave was equivalent to an earthquake measuring about 3.9 on the Richter Scale.
After the event, scientists and citizens searched for fragments of the meteor, said to possibly look like burnt egg shells and be worth up to $50,000.
Nothing was ever found, and the explosion may have reduced whatever was left of the space rock to powder.
Alleged Russian Rocket Comes Down Over Wyo.
Associated Press
Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:02 EST
"NORAD identified the rocket as an SL-4 that had been used to launch a French space telescope in December, and Kelly said U.S. spacewatchers knew the rocket was coming down."
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AP) -- A spent Russian booster rocket re-entered the atmosphere Thursday over Colorado and Wyoming, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing flaming objects in the sky at the time the rocket was re-entering, NORAD spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kelly said.
"It was pretty spectacular," said Riverton Police Capt. Mark Stone, who said he saw the burning object while he was retrieving his newspaper. "My first concern is that we had some sort of aircraft that was coming down. It was definitely leaving a burning debris trail behind it."
Stone said he could tell it was fairly large object, but it was too high to make out exactly what it was.
Kelly said the agency was unable to confirm a report that a piece of the rocket may have hit the ground near Riverton, Wyo., at about 6 a.m. MST.
No damage was reported, and any debris that may have hit the ground was not believed to be hazardous, NORAD said.
NORAD identified the rocket as an SL-4 that had been used to launch a French space telescope in December, and Kelly said U.S. spacewatchers knew the rocket was coming down.
"Objects falling from space are almost an everyday occurrence," Kelly said.
Comment: On a number of occasions the public has been warned in advance of falling rocket debris and it's generally a big deal. Here they say that "rocket watchers knew" it was coming down, yet nobody said a thing.
Somehow, we find their explanation to be disingenuous.
Bright green light across sky surprises many in Singapore
Valarie Tan
Channel NewsAsia
Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:43 EST
SINGAPORE: A bright light across the sky took many Singaporeans by surprise on Sunday evening.
Callers to our hotline said that at about 7.40pm, they saw a bright green light across the evening sky.
Some described it as a shooting star; others said it was like a satellite re-entering the earth's atmosphere.
They also said it was not very high up in the sky and it had streaked over brightly from east to west.
It was over in a matter of seconds.
Viewers called us from all over Singapore - Serangoon North, Sembawang, Woodlands, Selegie Road, Bedok, Bukit Panjang and Marina South.
Ismail Yussof, one of the eyewitnesses, said: "I thought it was a comet. I was stunned, staring at the sky. A lot of people were watching it.
His son managed to record the scene with the video function of his mobile phone. "It's like an aeroplane, very big. The front is like a cannon ball, full of colours - orange, yellow, blue and green. And it went off very fast, in about 10 seconds. I could see it very clearly."
The meteorological service said it had no information on the phenomenon as it was too small to be reflected on satellite pictures.
Mystery light over Singapore
By Gracia Chiang
channelnewsasia
Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:36 EST
It's a meteor. It's a green flash. Or is it all in the mind?
Intermittent bursts of green streaks across Singapore skies on Sunday evening have set communities abuzz with talk of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings and experts debating the phenomenon.
The light was seen around 7.40pm in areas including Woodlands, Bedok, Bukit Panjang, Clementi and Marina.
While some readers said it was a green light, others observed a blue and white glow. The light resembled a fireball with a "tail", lasting for a few seconds in the sky before disappearing, they said.
"There was a light flying very fast going towards Sentosa and it was shaped like a rocket," said self-employed businessman Mr Abdullah Yusof, 48, who was at Harbourfront Centre with his family. The phenomenon lasted for less than a minute, he added.
Another reader, 25-year-old software engineer Xu Tao saw three green lights "moving from left to right" from his Clementi flat. His first thought? Aliens.
He said: "I thought it might be a UFO because it definitely looks different from aeroplane lights."
But the experts have a different, more scientific take. Mr Albert Lim, president of The Astronomical Society of Singapore (Tasos) described it as a bolide, or an exploding fireball.
"This is essentially a meteor but it is a hundred times brighter. A normal piece of rock that comes into the atmosphere will burn up and this is known as a shooting star. When bigger chunks come in, they take a longer time to burn up and they drag across the sky," he said.
There are millions of meteors every day but they are hardly seen by the naked eye and their trails are usually short, lasting from half a second to two seconds. Sporadic meteors like the one on Sunday are so random that it is almost impossible to predict how frequent they occur, he said.
He added that since the meteor was heading southwards, it would have probably ended up in the sea.
However, chief executive of the Singapore Science Centre, Dr Chew Tuan Chiong said: "The fact that it occurred around sunset suggests it is likely to be what people call the 'green flash'."
This is caused by the scattering of sunlight by small particles in the atmosphere, which results in different light components.
"The atmosphere acts as a lens and when these colour components are blended correctly, you see the green flash," he explained.
He does not think it might be a meteor as there was no noise reported.
But Tasos' Mr Lim is not convinced.
"Whether there is sound depends on the distance and how intense the explosion is. This occurred after sunset and the green flash does not normally have a trail or last for 10 seconds. I am almost certain that this is a meteor," he said.
The meteorological services department of the National Environment Agency said there was no information on the phenomenon as it was too small to be detected by satellite.
Scientists: What struck house was a meteorite
BY NICK CLUNN
Asbury Park Press
Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:41 EST
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP - The mysterious object that shot through the roof of a two-story home earlier this week was identified by scientists as a meteorite, police said Friday.
But the fate of the extraterrestrial mass, likely formed with the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago, has emerged as another unknown in the case of the second known meteorite to fall in New Jersey.
Its new owners, a married couple with a son, expressed some interest in putting the meteorite on a small-scale tour so local schoolchildren could see it, said Jeremy Delaney, a Rutgers University meteoriticist who was among four scientists who identified the object for police and later met the family.
Eventually the family will have to decide whether to keep the meteorite, give it to an academic institution such as a museum or sell it to a collector.
What's for sure is that the object will be in high demand.
Rarely on landings do meteorites come in contact with people. So when they do, the space artifacts are connected with a story that generates interest all around.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., both of which have extensive meteorite collections, likely will have interest, Delaney said.
Depending on the rarity of a given meteorite, researchers sometimes spend several years looking at the same chunk that fell from space.
"By looking at these objects, we have the ability to explore our deep, deep past," Delaney said. "Meteorites have given scientists clues about life on Mars and the rest of our solar system."
New Jersey's only other known meteorite, weighing an ounce, fell in Deal in 1829.
The precise research value of New Jersey's newest meteorite won't be known unless it ends up in the hands of scientists who would study its composition.
But Delaney said the Freehold meteorite might be of some interest to researchers because it is rich in metals, a sign that it came from the deep interior of an asteroid.
"We all want to know where it's from and you won't get that until you do some analysis," said Peter Elliott, a Colts Neck metallurgist who also helped identify the meteorite.
Its magnetic properties, color, texture and high density convinced scientists within a few minutes of inspecting it that it was a meteorite.
When the meteorite began to shoot through the Earth's atmosphere Tuesday afternoon, it likely was the size of a football, but then it quickly lost mass as its metals burned and melted on entry, Delaney said.
By the time it hit the house, the object was 2.5 inches by 1.5 inches and weighed about 13 ounces. Despite its relatively small size, the meteorite was able to puncture the shingled roof in the Colts Pride development because it likely was traveling at the speed of sound, Delaney said.
It appeared to have hit the home about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday when the mother of the household heard a noise, according to an account given to police by the family.
That night, her adult son found the meteorite embedded in a bathroom wall on the second floor, where it came to rest after bouncing off the tile floor.
On Thursday, the four scientists met at police headquarters with magnets and magnifying lenses to inspect the object. They reached a consensus about 10 minutes later and named it "Freehold Township."
Scientists customarily name meteorites after the place where they landed. But neither the name nor the meteorite designation will become scientifically official until the local findings are reviewed by the Natural History Museum in London, which holds a world catalog of meteorites, Delaney said.
Citing their respect for privacy, neither the police nor the scientists would disclose the names of the family members who now own an object from outer space.
Metal Object Crashes Through N.J. Home
By CHRIS NEWMARKER
Associated Press
Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:43 EST
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A metal, rock-like object about the size of a golf ball and weighing nearly as much as a can of soup crashed through the roof of a Monmouth County home, and authorities on Wednesday were trying to figure out what it was.
Nobody was injured when the oblong object, weighing more than 13 ounces, crashed into the home and embedded itself in a wall Tuesday night. Federal officials sent to the scene said it was not from an aircraft.
The rough-feeling object, with a metallic glint, was displayed Wednesday by police. "There's some great interest in what we have here," said Lt. Robert Brightman. "It's rather unusual. I haven't seen anything like it in my career."
He said he hoped to have the object identified within 72 hours, but declined to name the other agencies whose help he said he had enlisted.
Police received a call Wednesday morning that the metal object had punched a hole in the roof of a single-family, two-story home, damaged tiles on a bathroom floor below and then bounced, sticking into a wall.
The object was heavier than a usual metal object of that size, said Brightman, who added that no radioactivity was detected.
Brightman would not disclose the address of the house or the names of the people who lived there, citing the family's desire to not talk to the media. He would only say that the couple and their adult son live in a township housing development.
Brightman said one man who lives at the home found the object at about 9 p.m. Tuesday after returning from work and hearing from his mother that something had crashed through the roof a few hours before.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which sent investigators to the town, did not know where the object came from, said spokeswoman Arlene Murray.
"It's definitely not an aircraft part," she said. "I can't speak beyond that as to what it might be."
Approximately 20 to 50 rock-like objects fall every day over the entire planet, said Carlton Pryor, a professor of astronomy at Rutgers University.
"It's not all that uncommon to have rocks rain down from heaven," said Pryor, who had not seen the object that struck the Monmouth County home. "These are usually rocky or a mixture of rock and metal."
Pryor said laboratory tests would have to be conducted to determine if the object were a meteorite.
A Meteorite Lands in a N.J. Bathroom
By CHRIS NEWMARKER
Associated Press
Thu, 11 Jan 2007 03:49 EST
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A hole in the roof, a bathroom full of debris and a strange, silvery rock near the toilet - the Nageswaran family soon realized they needed an astronomer, not a contractor, to fully explain what damaged their house.
Scientists determined it was a meteorite that crashed through the roof of their central New Jersey home more than a week ago.
While extraterrestrial rocks fall to the Earth with some regularity, it is rare for them to strike homes.
"The fact that something from outer space hit our house ... it's overwhelming," Shankari Nageswaran said in an interview. She and her husband, Srinivasan Nageswaran, a 46-year-old consultant for information technology companies, are from India and have lived in Freehold Township since 2003.
On the night of Jan. 2, Srinivasan Nageswaran walked into his bathroom and spotted a hole in the ceiling and small chunks of drywall and insulation littering the room.
His mother, who has been staying with the family, recalled that she had heard a loud boom a few hours earlier and thought it was a post-New Year's fireworks explosion. But that didn't explain the mess.
The family initially thought an old patch job in the ceiling had come loose. The mystery deepened after Shankari Nageswaran started cleaning up. On the floor directly below the hole, under an evergreen bath mat, the tile was dented. There was another dent on the wall.
Near the back of the toilet, she found a metallic rock, about the same size and shape as the hole in the ceiling. The sparkly rock was the size of a golf ball but heavier at 13 ounces, or about as heavy as a can of soup.
Her husband shined a flashlight through the hole in the ceiling, then stuck a long stick in, and realized there was another hole in the roof.
It was not until the next morning that his father suggested the mysterious rock came from outer space, and they called police.
Two geologists from Rutgers University, along with an independent metallurgist, soon arrived. They concluded that the rock - tentatively named "Freehold Township" - was an iron meteorite.
"It could have done great damage and destruction," Srinivasan Nageswaran marveled. "It could have hurt our people."
About 50 meteorites reach the Earth's surface each year, but with humans occupying only a small part of the planet, there is only one report every year or two of meteorites hitting buildings, said Tim McCoy, curator of the Smithsonian Institution's meteorite collection.
Every meteorite serves as a "poor man's space probe," yielding information on how the solar system formed, McCoy said.
"There's been fewer than 5,000 meteorites found over the surface of the Earth in the recorded history of mankind," McCoy said. "Every time we get a new one, it's an important event."
Meteorites that hit buildings can be sold for thousands of dollars.
The Nageswarans have not decided what to do with their meteorite, despite plenty of advice from family and friends. But they said they want to make sure that the rock, which they have locked up at a bank, serves an educational purpose.
"There are other dimensions to it than just the absolute 'What is it worth?'" Shankari Nageswaran said.
UFO Crash in Central Iran - Or Meteorite?
Fars News Agency
Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:35 EST
TEHRAN - An Unidentified Flying Object crashed in Barez Mounts in the central province of Kerman Wednesday morning.
Deputy Governor General of Kerman province Abulghassem Nasrollahi told FNA that the crash which was followed by an explosion and a thick spiral of smoke has caused no casualties or damage to properties.
He further denied earlier reports that the explosion has been the result of a plane or chopper crash, reminding that all the passing aircrafts have been reported as sound and safe.
The official further stated that investigations are underway by police and other relevant authorities in this regard.
While other reports spoke of meteors, Nasrollahi said there were no conclusive witnesses in this regard but he did not dismiss the possibility that the crash has been caused by a meteor.
Eye-witnesses assure that the explosion has been caused as a result of the crash of a radiant unidentified flying object onto the ground.
Meantime, an informed source told FNA that the object has been on fire and there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash, concluding that the object couldn't have been a meteor as meteors do not smoke.
The source also said that the crash has been witnessed by people in several cities, and mentioned that the rendezvous point is located 100 kilometers from the provincial capital city of Kerman.
He said that people in the city of Rafsanjan also reported to have witnessed a similar incident several days ago.
Similar crash incidents have been witnessed frequently during the last year all across Iran, and officials believe that the objects could be spy planes or a hi-tech espionage device.
Scotland: 'Fireball' calls blamed on comet
BBC News
Mon, 15 Jan 2007 02:37 EST
A major Royal Navy and police search carried out near Dumfries has been blamed on sightings of a comet.
The alert was raised at about 1700 GMT on Friday when police operators started receiving calls about a "burning light" spotted above the town.
|
©BBC |
The comet is believed to have sparked a string of calls to police |
Two navy helicopters and police officers checked the area over fears an aircraft might have been on fire.
A police spokesman said the Met Office had suggested Comet McNaught would have been visible in the area at the time.
Nothing found
The sightings were focused on the Lochar Moss on the outskirts of the town.
Police sent out officers to check the area and two Royal Navy rescue helicopters were called in, carrying out a two-hour search.
However, nothing was found.
A police spokesman said the Met Office had offered a possible explanation - that the sightings were of Comet McNaught, which would have been visible at that time.
Bad Astronomy
Wed, 17 Jan 2007 07:42 EST
I just got an email from a reader saying a friend of his saw what may have been a spectacular meteor breakup near Columbus, Wisconsin around 7:10 p.m. local time today (Monday, January 15, an hour ago as I write this). Did any BABloggees from that area see anything?
The friend reported seeing several "vertical trails" in the sky, so it sounds like it could have been a meteor exploding and creating several trails.
Meteorite Falls In Western Russia
Russia IC
Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:23 EST
In Altaisky Krai scientists are searching for meteorite, which fell from the sky not long ago. Barnaul planetarium is receiving a great number of telephone calls from people, who have seen the fireball falling.
Natalia Pavlova, research fellow of Barnaul planetarium, said that on 10 January many people have observed a fireball falling down and making a loud noise.
Scientists have data that first meteorite fall was detected in Altaisky Krai in 1840. Since then about twenty meteorites have fallen in said region. Four of celestial bodies have been detected here in 21st century.
Fellows of Barnaul planetarium ask people who have seen the meteorite falling or know the place where it fell to report any possible details. Thus, scientists expect to specify the area of meteorite fall to start searching for the guest from space.
Ice Chunk Crashes Through Delaware Co. Home
CBS3
Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:06 EST
A Delaware County family narrowly avoided injury after a chunk of ice came crashing through their home Wednesday evening.
The incident happened shortly after 8:00 p.m. in the 1300 block of Donna Drive in Woodlyn.
Ed and Penny Myers said they were getting their 4-year-old daughter ready for bed when the icy object tore a 3-foot through the roof.
"There was this explosion in the room. At first I thought it was the T.V. shattering and glass, then I looked up and saw the hole in the ceiling and I was afraid the whole ceiling was going to collapse," said Penny.
Penny and her daughter were both hit by what they thought was glass, but they soon noticed icy debris on the ground. While there were no major injuries, Penny said she scraped her leg and her daughter Lindsay had a scrape on her stomach.
"A huge amount of ice shot to every corner of the room and it was just a complete disaster," said Ed Myers.
Myers added a plane will occasionally fly over there home, which is located a few miles from the end of a runway at the Philadelphia International Airport. The family believes the ice was either waste water or fell off of a plane's landing gear.
The FAA is investigating the incident in hopes of determining the origin of the ice.
icnetwork.co.uk
Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:35 EST
A MAJOR search involving two RAF helicopters was sparked in Dumfries on Friday (Jan 19) evening after sightings of a "fireball" in the sky.
Police received a number of reports of flare -like objects in the sky over Dumfries.
The calls came in from several worried members of the public at around 5pm.
However, the "fireball" turned out to be Comet McNaught blazing millions of miles away from earth.
The police and the RAF checked the area fearing that an aircraft may have been on fire.
A spokesperson for Dumfries and Galloway police said: "The reports varied in description with all the witnesses describing some form of fireball with smoke trail. A search was carried out and the area was checked by an RAF search team with a negative result.
"The Met office offered a possible explanation that Comet McNaught would have been visible between 5pm and 6pm."
Comment: Interesting that the fireball was described by many witnesses as having a smoke trail - I could have sworn that comets had big, glowing tails. As a matter of fact, according to Sciencedaily.com (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070119144255.htm)
"In early January, it [comet McNaught] was visible in the northern hemisphere but after passing the Sun, it only became visible from the southern hemisphere, entering the constellation Microscopium (The Microscope) on 18 January."
Isn't Dumfries in the Northern Hemisphere? - but, hey, I'm probably just nit picking - move along, nothing to see here.
Mystery light seen across Wales
BBC
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:39 EST
A flashing light reported "streaking" through the skies across much of Wales at breakfast time could have been a meteor, an expert believes.
The light was first seen at 0730 GMT, with one eyewitness describing it as a "long line, thicker at one end, bluey-green and flashing".
Reports of the light came in from the Lleyn Peninsula through to Swansea.
Jay Tate from Spaceguard UK said it was most likely to be a piece of space debris entering the earth's atmosphere.
"It was frightening," said Morfudd Parry Roberts from Aberdaron, Gwynedd.
"I was sitting having a cup of coffee by the window when I saw it (the light) move from the north towards the south.
"It was a long line, thicker at the front end. It was quite frightening because it seemed so big."
"It was a bluey-green and flashing. It was at least 50 times bigger than a shooting star and seemed to be gliding through the sky quite low down, not falling."
Witnesses said the light lasted for a few seconds.
"I'm just glad other people saw it as well," she added.
Andrew Curley, 32, from Penrhyncoch, near Aberystwyth, was out walking his dog when he spotted a "huge fireball" racing out to sea.
"My initial thoughts were that it was a plane on fire, but it was far too big and going far too quickly for it to be an aircraft," said Mr Curley.
"It must have been something like a meteorite because it just lit up the sky."
White hot air
The Spaceguard UK centre at Knighton, Powys, is a privately-funded body looking at the threat posed to the earth by collisions with asteroids and comets.
"Without having seen it myself I can't be certain, but from the description it sounds like a fireball, which is a big shooting star," said Jay Tate from the centre.
The earth was hit by a "couple of tonnes" of debris from space every day, Mr Tate added, but usually they were small particles about the size of a grain of sand.
Occasionally, however, debris was larger and from the number of people who saw the light on Wednesday he estimated it would have been about the size of an orange.
"If it was bigger than that we would have heard a lot more about it," he said.
The particles hit the earth's atmosphere at between 45-50,000 mph and the light seen is the white hot air around it, he said.
The light is often described as green, he added, depending on the make-up of the rock.
Roger Reed of Milford Haven Coastguard said they received two 999 calls from people who thought a ship might have sent out a distress flare.
They initially sent two teams out, at Aberydyfi and Broadhaven, but called them back when further calls suggested it was a shooting star.
"We had the first call at 0734. Then we had calls in from LNG site workers, the Pendine range vessel and someone on his way to work saying it looked like a shooting star," said Mr Reed.
Swansea coastguards also logged a call by someone who had seen a similar light, he added.
"The colour of the light seen varied, we had two say it was white, and one say it was green."
Mysterious Lights in the Sky
Fox Carolina
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 08:45 EST
Last night, (Wednesday 24th Jan 2007) blue and green lights were spotted in the sky around eight o'clock. People from all across the upstate and western North Carolina reported seeing the light streak through the sky toward the ground. Sheriff's offices in Greenville, Pickens and Spartanburg counties say they received dozens of calls reporting the lights. One of our viewers wrote in to tell us what she saw.
"I was traveling on michelin boulevard at the intersection of highway 24 when i saw what i thought was a small plane heading for the runway of anderson county airport. I realized quickly that it was nto a plane but appeared to be something falling. I thought maybe a meteorite."
We still don't know what the strange lights were, but we'll keep you updated on The Morning News and The Ten O'Clock News. If you have any pictures of the mysterious lights, please email them to us at foxcarolinanews@foxcarolina.com.
What was that thing? East Tennesseans report strange light in the sky
Jake Jost, Investigative Producer
WBIR.com
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:10 EST
|
©WBIR |
Meteor photographed over Tennessee in January 2007 |
Numerous East Tennesseans reported seeing a bright green light streak through the sky Wednesday night. Police dispatchers said they got so many calls, they didn't have time to count them.
Reports on its direction of travel varied somewhat. Most accounts on its shape and color reported it being blue-green with a comet-like tail, and many callers to WBIR were surprised by the size of it.
WBIR's own Steve Phillips saw the light as he returned from dinner and said it was larger than he expected a meteor to be.
Professor Paul Lewis didn't see the event himself, but from people's description, he expects it was a meteor.
"It's entirely possible that it could be a piece of space debris," he said. "Or, as I suspect, it's probably a piece of junk out of some asteroid belt, a rocky meteor, for instance."
Lewis went on to explain that if it were a meteor, it was likely alone. East Tennessee won't see another meteor shower until April 22nd. He added that the only way to know with absolute certainty what the object was would be if NORAD had been tracking it.
What Was That? Strange Lights In South Carolina Skies
WYFF4
Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:07 EST
GREENVILLE, S.C. -- It's the talk of the town and beyond. On radio, on television and by Internet from the world over, the question of the day has been: So what was that in the sky last night.
Hundreds of folks across the region called and e-mailed media outlets and the National Weather Service to report to report strange blue lights in the night sky Wednesday at about 8:15 p.m.
"We had several calls last night from people around the area who saw lights in the sky," Larry Lee of the National Weather Service told WYFF News 4's Nigel Robertson.
What was it?
"We have no idea," Lee said.
Reports came from as far away as Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.
And due to national Web exposure on The Drudge Report people called WYFF4 from as far away as New Mexico to ask about the lights.
"A blue light streaked across the sky in the Gaffney area. The light ... moved from the Greenville-Spartanburg area toward Huntersville, N.C.," Terry Coyle said. "The object had a bluish green tail about two miles long."
Law enforcement agencies also report receiving calls about the lights, and WYFF4.com correspondent Scott Wilson of Gastonia, N.C., also said he saw similar lights in the direction of the Upstate.
While no definitive information is available, WYFF 4 Chief Meteorologist John Cessarich said the most likely cause is a group of meteors streaking into the Earth's atmosphere.
Doug Gegen at the Roper Mountain Science Center agreed, but jokingly would not rule out the possibility of alien spacecraft.
"I mean, I can't say there aren't UFO's," Gegen said. "But it was probably a meteor entering Earth's atmosphere and that can cause multiple streaks and odd colors depending on what the meteor is made of."
So, assuming it was a meteor, should folks be worried?
"The sky is not falling as far as I know," Gegen said with a smile.
As for reports of helicopters in the area on Wednesday night, Cessarich said that he was able to confirm there were military helicopters on routine training missions operating in Greenville and Pickens counties.
There are reports of similar sightings from as far away as Europe. Click here for a story reported by the BBC about strange lights in the night sky above Wales.
Falling Ice Damages Car in Florida: Aliens, Atmosphere, or Airplane?
Valerie Boey
TampaBays10
Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:52 EST
Town 'N Country, Florida - Neighbors heard a whistling sound is what they described before noticing that a neighbor's car was severly damaged.
The Ford Mustang had a 100 pound block of ice sitting in the backseat. The back end of the car was caved in. The only explanation from neighbors is the ice fell from the sky. Hillsborough deputies do not believe it was a criminal activity.
The 20-year-old owner of the car is upset and did not want to talk to Tampa Bay's 10 News. His father says he has not seen anything like it before.
Neighbors have pieces of the ice chunk in their refrigerators. The owner of the car is in possession of the major chunk of ice.
Waikato fireball still a mystery
Waikato Times
Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:14 EST
Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Was it a bird striking a plane?
The exploding fireball which reportedly crashed to earth in or around Lake Waikare, near Te Kauwhata, on Sunday afternoon has so far proved a mystery.
It might have been the most exciting event to occur in Te Kauwhata since the last police booze sting, but witness Grace Walters could only conclude it was "one of those things".
The Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand was alerted after eyewitnesses saw a ball of flames going down over the lake and heard an explosion.
However, after helicopters and rescue boats searched the area and fire services talked to farmers with nearby properties the search was called off.
"I saw it drop down, but couldn't see it hit the water for the trees," Mrs Walters said.
"It's one of those things - a mystery."
No aircraft had been reported overdue and police had not received calls from anyone missing friends or family.
Steve Calveley, president of the Auckland Astronomical Society, said it could have been a meteorite.
"An awful lot get reported but few get found," he said.
"It is pretty rare that someone can pinpoint where they land.
Car-destroying chunk may be icy meteor
Breaking News
Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:43 EST
TAMPA, Fla. -- Andre Javage says he was just amazed when first he saw his car after ice fell from the sky and destroyed his car.
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©Breaking News |
Mashed Mustang. Big chunk of ice destroyed car in Tampa. Tampa Bay's 10 image. |
Javage, 20, who had left the car at a friend's house, says he thought his friends were playing a practical joke and he hung up when he first got the call about the ice after the Sunday incident.
While a map of flights from Tampa International of flight activity does show there were three flights departing at the same time the ice fell, experts say departing planes could not have dropped the ice. Furthermore, the house is to the north of the airport, and all the departures were to the south.
Dr. David Travis says the ice could be a "megacryometeor," a result of global warming. Travis says the theory is that the ozone layer is trapping in gases that make the earth warmer, but the atmosphere above the ozone is actually getting colder.
The megacryometeor is like a giant hailstone that forms in the cold air and drops to the earth
Meteorite, not UFO, lands in Didim
Voices
Sun, 04 Feb 2007 11:16 EST
POLICE were inundated with calls from scores of people from Didim to Bodrum after they heard a big bang and a flash of light across the skies.
Despite officers being unable to explain the flashing green, yellow and red lights, Voices has solved the phenomena.
It was not a UFO but a meteorite which crash through the earth's atmosphere and landed in Ye?ilkent.
|
©Voices |
A startled Abdullah Ar?t?rk revealed that the rock had smashed a hole in the ground at the Green Park Complex, at Ye?ilkent, narrowly missing him by ten metres.
Police reported that people from Bodrum, Milas and Didim had heard a bang and seen the flashing light across the skies at about 5.30pm on Thursday (Jan 31).
Mr Ar?t?rk said: "I thought this was it. I thought it was the apocalypse. I saw the bang and the flashing lights and this rock smashed into the ground quite near me. It was very frightening."
After telling the Voices of his story, Mr Ar?t?rk is now awaiting scientists from Aegean University, in ?zmir, to take the meteorite away for closer examination.
Great ball of fire was a meteor
Aldrich M. Tan
The Northwestern
Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:04 EST
A large ball of fire spotted in the sky at 7:52 p.m. Sunday was a meteor, according to the Winnebago County Sheriff 's Department.
An individual in the area of State Highway 44, south of Oshkosh, spotted a fireball the "size of an airplane" in the sky, Sgt. Gordon Ledioyt said. Other calls followed.
Reports of the fireball also came from Oshkosh, Ripon, Appleton, Neenah, Pulaski, Milwaukee and the state of Iowa, Ledioyt said.
Winnebago County Sheriff 's Department dispatchers contacted Chicago Air Route Traffic Control Center, Ledioyt said. The Control Center confirmed that a meteor was passing through the area. Control Center officials said they did not have any emergency beacons going off to indicate that the fireball was an airplane.
It is unsure if the meteor has touched down or landed, Ledioyt said.
Reports of falling objects in Missouri, Illinois
Associated Press
Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:06 EST
ST. LOUIS - Dozens of people in Missouri and southern Illinois reported seeing flaming objects falling from the sky Sunday evening.
People reported small objects that looked like bright lights or something burning, with flaming tails behind some of them, said Ken Tretter of Missouri State Highway Patrol in St. Louis.
He said the reports came in from a widespread area, including St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Pettis County in Missouri and near Alton and Bunker Hill in Illinois.
A preliminary report Sunday indicated the lights were from a meteor, said Maj. April Cunningham, a spokeswoman for North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which watches for airborne threats to the United States and Canada.
"We had a pilot reporting seeing a meteor and that's really all the information we have tonight," Cunningham said.
Mysterious lights in sky spur calls to State Patrol
Matt Kelley
Radio Iowa News
Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:45 EST
Not everybody was watching the Superbowl last night, some Iowans were watching mysterious lights in the sky. The Iowa State Patrol got about a hundred calls from people who saw bright orange or red flashes in the southern sky between seven and eight P.M.
Some people thought it may've been an aircraft on fire, but none are missing. Experts say it may've been meteors but there's no known major meteor shower underway right now. Doug Rudd, of the Des Moines Astronomical Society, says he thinks it was "space debris, some satellite or a rocket booster that was coming back through the atmosphere and breaking up."
Rudd says the colors are often key in determining what's blazing through the sky. He says different minerals put off a green or an orange glow, but usually they're not mixed, which he says lends to the argument this item may've been comprised of multiple parts, like a satellite. Rudd says this incident is something of a surprise since there are so many agencies that constantly track every bit of space "junk" and every large meteor near earth.
He says "The amount of data that's available to us to track those things is quite voluminous and when something like this does occur, it really does take people off guard." Eyewitnesses include a Dallas County Sheriff's deputy, a National Weather Service worker in the Quad Cities and a pilot. The flashes were also reported over Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin and Indiana.
Comment: We have run a couple of other articles about this particular fireball. This article has, however, some classic rationalizations: there is no known major meteor shower underway at the moment, and so it must be space debris... except that ""The amount of data that's available to us to track those things is quite voluminous and when something like this does occur, it really does take people off guard."
We bet.
Notice they are saying no "major" meteor shower underway, which should give some indication as to the spectacular show people saw on Sunday night.
And, somehow, we have the feeling that it is only going to get worse. People are going to be caught more and more off guard... and not from space debris.
Rachel Pegg
The Argus
Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:23 EST
A meteor has been spotted falling to the Earth.
The shooting star was engulfed in bright flames as it shot towards the ground over Hangleton, Hove, at about 8.15pm yesterday.
At the time a rugby match was taking place at Waterhall and it looked as if the meteor would have landed close to the pitch.
Graham Pettit spotted the meteor as he waited for his wife outside Bishop Hannington Memorial Church, Nevill Avenue, Hove.
Mr Pettit, 55, of Denton Drive, Patcham, said: "I was standing outside. I thought it was a sky rocket at first. I have seen a lot of shooting stars over the years. It went straight across."
It is certainly not the first time meteors have been spotted over Sussex.
Astronomer Patrick Moore, who lives in Selsey, near Chichester, said meteors are not uncommon and are regularly seen at night.
He said: "Meteors often fall to Earth and can often be seen in quite large numbers as they enter the atmosphere.
"It is fairly unusual to see them that close to the ground but not unheard of."
The meteor was travelling northwards across the A27 bypass.
Brighton Rugby Club, which trains at Waterhall on Tuesday nights, said it knew nothing of the meteor.
Around 40 players were there, including a large number of youth players.
However third team coach Andy Rice said he did not see anything in the skies.
Strange Sightings In North Carolina Skies
wxii12.com
Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:23 EST
Are the makings of a Sci-Fi movie happening in the Piedmont-Triad?
There have been strange reports about flying objects in the skies -- and some people think they're UFOs.
WXII 12's Nicole Ducouer spoke to a Kernersville man who said he captured an object on his cell phone.
Jamarus Crews said he was sitting in his Farmwood Garden Apartment when he saw something in the sky. It had lots of lights and made no noise, he said.
Wilkes County's Charles Miller said he also caught an image of an object.
"From the first time I saw it until it was gone, it was 45 seconds and it crossed the entire sky," he told Ducouer.
Strange sightings have been reported in a number of locations in recent days.
The National Weather Service said it has seen nothing out of the ordinary on its radar, and the Appalachian State University Observatory said it was probably a bolide -- a fireball-like meteor that frequently enters the earth's atmosphere but is rarely seen.
To watch Ducouer's full report, use the video link above.
Comment: Sure, people are seeing all kinds of strange lights in the sky recently all over the world, but don't worry - they aren't UFOs, they're just a whole lot of bolides that are supposed to be rarely seen...
Three Killed In Suspected Meteorite Fall In India's Rajasthan
DPA
Thu, 08 Feb 2007 17:55 EST
Three people were killed and four injured in a mysterious blast in a village in India's northern Rajasthan state Thursday that villagers claim was caused by a meteorite, news reports said.
Residents of Banchola village in Bundi district, about 200 kilometres south of Rajasthan capital Jaipur, said the victims were sitting with some iron scrap in an open field when an "object" fell from the sky and hit them, IANS news agency reported.
"The matter is under investigation. We know that there was a blast but looking at the crater it does not seem that it happened due to a meteorite," a Bundi police official was quoted as saying by IANS.
He said the crater was just 8-10 inches in diameter and two inches deep. A team from the state-run forensic science laboratory in Jaipur was collecting evidence from the site, the official said.
Meteorite Causes Damage - Or Maybe Not
by Kevin Rogers
DearneToday UK
Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:41 EST
A 'METEORITE' seen flashing through the sky before destroying a tree in Mexborough turned out to be a meteor-wrong. Or did it?
Denaby student Shane McGarrigle and two friends turned detective after they saw a flash in the sky and heard a huge bang as they walked near Ferryboat bridge last Wednesday night.
"I was lucky enough to witness this along with two other friends. It was quite a sight," said Shane, 19, of St Chad's Square.
"We saw a flash in the sky and heard a big bang. We thought a power cable had come down. When we got to the old rectory, the trunk of a large tree was broken like a matchstick."
Convinced he had spotted a meteorite hit - an event only witnessed about 500 times a year worldwide - Shane took some snaps at the scene. When he returned the following morning the tree had burned to a cinder.
But insurance broker John Jesson, who lives at the Old Vicarage, poured cold water on Shane's theory.
Mr Jesson explained: "Landscape gardeners had been in that day and lit a fire next to the tree. The tree was riddled with woodworm and dry as balsa wood. They lit a fire near to it and it must have spread to the tree. That night you could see it burning halfway up and it broke in two and toppled into the canal."
So that answers the question of the falling tree - but what about the flashing light in the sky?
When we told him what Mr Jesson had said about the tree, Shane said: "There must have some confusion then, probably on my part - but there were three of us and we still saw what we saw."
Did any of our readers see any strange phenomena over Mexborough last Wednesday? If so, contact our newsdesk on 01709 303050 or email editorial(at)dearnetoday.co.uk
kevin.rogers(at)dearnetoday.co.uk
Strange noise might have been meteor
JIM SABIN
Newark Advocate
Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:56 EST
NEWARK - Something happened at around 9 p.m. Wednesday that a lot of people heard, or even felt.
What it was, though, might forever remain a mystery.
"It" was a loud bang, something loud enough to be heard across southern and central Ohio, and loud enough to make small objects move in houses. Reports have rolled into The Advocate from Hanover to Heath, from Buckeye Lake to Granville, and NBC4 heard reports from Muskingum, Fairfield and Pickaway counties.
Rumors range from an earthquake to a meteor strike, a sonic boom to something ice-related.
Was it simply falling ice? That's what many, including NBC4's Jym Ganahl, believe. But many also went outside to check because it sounded like their houses had been hit.
A few things have been eliminated. Instruments show it wasn't an earthquake. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base told NBC4 that it didn't have any flights in the area, and North American Aerospace Defense Command said it knew of nothing man-made entering the atmosphere.
NORAD did report a flight of National Guard jets out of Toledo over southern Ohio, but it was not fast enough to break the sound barrier and create a sonic boom.
While we may never know for sure, at least one scientist believes the meteor could be the answer.
Mike Hansen, director of the Ohio Seismic Network, said there's no evidence to suggest an earthquake could have caused the bang, especially not over the range specified. NBC4 has fielded calls from Fairfield, Muskingum and Pickaway counties, and the National Weather Service heard similar tales from Cincinnati, Wilmington and Lebanon.
Jeff Gill, of Granville, said he saw a meteor with a relatively long trail, with red, green and gold coloration. It was headed east to west and lasted about three seconds; after it faded, the sonic boom washed over him, he said.
"I saw it first. It was the most eerie, cool, scary, wonderful thing. You just see this dragon tail going across the sky," said Gill, who also writes a religion column for The Advocate. "All of a sudden, everything goes boom."
He said he checked his watch and thought it said 9:42 p.m., but now he can't be certain. A seismograph at the Ohio Seismic Network's office in Alum Creek picked up something that Hansen said was more than likely something noise-related, but other seismographs, including a more sensitive machine in the same building, didn't catch anything.
That report was at 8:42 p.m., which is more consistent with the other reports.
"His description there of the colors of it are consistent with a meteorite," said Hansen, who also has studied meteorites. "That would be an explanation of a sonic boom-type phenomenon."
A sonic boom travels across terrain behind the aircraft - or meteorite - creating it, he said. The speed of an average meteorite, 25,000 miles per hour, would certainly allow for similar reports across the state, and if the object was at a low trajectory, it could be heard literally far and wide.
The Licking County Sheriff's Office reported about 10 calls between 8:35 p.m. and 3:48 a.m. from residents hearing loud noises. Five of the calls came between 8:51 and 9:43 p.m.
Hansen said he hears similar time discrepancies all the time when dealing with earthquakes, which often are noticed as loud bangs.
"People are notoriously bad at reporting the times," he said. "You have to look at these peoples' reports with a bit of skepticism on timing."
Most reported the bang at or near 9 p.m., roughly around the same time the Ohio State basketball game was ending on TV. But some reports came in of multiple bangs, or some as late as 4 a.m. Thursday.
Aside from the time discrepancies, the profile fits a meteor, said Christine Pulliam, public relations specialist for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
"Typically you have one coming in at a particular time," Pulliam said. No agency tracks meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere, however. "If it definitely wasn't anything manmade, then I guess a meteor's the most likely explanation."
The National Weather Service's station in Wilmington is equally lost, especially after hearing calls from the Cincinnati area. The only common factor is that each area was affected by Tuesday's ice storm.
"It definitely wasn't thunder," a meteorologist there said. "We're kind of stumped on that ourselves."
Readers of NewarkAdvocate.com reported similar stories - a bang loud enough to shake houses, but with nothing apparently wrong afterward.
"We live in Indian Hills (west of Granville off Ohio 16) and the explosion at approximately 9 p.m. was so loud it shook our house!" one reader wrote. "We thought a sheet of ice came off of our roof onto the deck or our roof had collapsed, but after further investigation we could find nothing amiss."
Not everyone agreed that it was a meteor, however. Ganahl said every contact he's heard about the bang was writing from an area that got some layer of ice earlier this week.
"I'm 100 percent certain that it's ice," he said. "It's only the areas that had a lot of ice. None have been from areas with just snow."
Comment: Reports from Ohio to New Jersey. The night of the Super Bowl, there were reports of another from Minnesota down to Missouri and east into Illinois and Ohio.
Something's happening, and it is happening with greater frequency. Last week another was spotted in Turkey and one in the UK....
Nervous, anyone?
Unexplained 'big bang' heard throughout Ohio region
By JIM SABIN
Newark Advocate
Fri, 16 Feb 2007 11:18 EST
NEWARK - Something happened at around 9 p.m. Wednesday that a lot of people heard.
But nobody seems to have any idea what it was.
What it was, though, might forever remain a mystery.
It was a loud bang, something loud enough to be heard across southern and central Ohio, and loud enough to make small objects move in houses. Reports have rolled into The Advocate from Hanover to Heath, from Buckeye Lake to Granville, and NBC4 heard reports from Muskingum, Fairfield and Pickaway counties.
Rumors range from an earthquake to a meteor strike, a sonic boom to something ice-related.
Was it simply falling ice? That's what many, including NBC4's Jym Ganahl, believe. But many also went outside to check because it sounded like their houses had been hit.
A few things have been eliminated. Instruments show it wasn't an earthquake.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base told NBC4 that it didn't have any flights in the area, and North American Aerospace Defense Command said it knew of nothing man-made entering the atmosphere. NORAD did report a flight of National Guard jets out of Toledo over southern Ohio, but it was not fast enough to break the sound barrier and create a sonic boom.
While we may never know for sure, at least one scientist believes the meteor could be the answer.
Mike Hansen, director of the Ohio Seismic Network, said there's no evidence to suggest an earthquake could have caused the bang, especially not over the range specified. NBC-4 fielded calls from Fairfield, Muskingum and Pickaway counties, and the National Weather Service heard similar tales from Cincinnati, Wilmington and Lebanon.
Jeff Gill, of Granville, said he saw a meteor with a relatively long trail, with red, green and gold coloration. It was headed east to west and lasted about three seconds; after it faded, the sonic boom washed over him, he said.
"I saw it first. It was the most eerie, cool, scary, wonderful thing. You just see this dragon tail going across the sky," said Gill, who also writes a religion column for the Newark Advocate. "All of a sudden, everything goes boom."
He said he checked his watch and thought it said 9:42 p.m., but now he can't be certain. A seismograph at the Ohio Seismic Network's office in Alum Creek picked up something that Hansen said was more than likely something noise-related, but other seismographs, including a more sensitive machine in the same building, didn't catch anything.
That report was at 8:42 p.m., which is more consistent with the other reports.
"His description there of the colors of it are consistent with a meteorite," said Hansen, who has also studied meteorites. "That would be an explanation of a sonic boom-type phenomenon."
A sonic boom travels across terrain behind the aircraft - or meteorite - creating it, he said. The speed of an average meteorite, 25,000 miles per hour, would certainly allow for similar reports across the state, and if the object was at a low trajectory, it could be heard literally far and wide.
The Licking County Sheriff's Office reported about 10 calls between 8:35 p.m. and 3:48 a.m. from residents hearing loud noises. Five of the calls came between 8:51 and 9:43 p.m.
Hansen said he hears similar time discrepancies all the time when dealing with earthquakes, which often are also noticed as loud bangs.
"People are notoriously bad at reporting the times," he said. "You have to look at these peoples' reports with a bit of skepticism on timing."
Most reported the bang at or near 9 p.m., roughly around the same time the Ohio State basketball game was ending on TV.
"The type of waves that I see is not earthquake-type stuff. What bothers me is we don't see it anywhere else," Hansen said. "Right now this is mysterious to me."
Major Bryan Hoover of the Muskingum County Sheriff's Office said he heard a loud noise around 1:30 a.m. Thursday.
"I got out and walked around my house thinking it was the ice or a tree falling," Hoover said. "But when I didn't see anything I wasn't sure what happened."
Hoover said before he left for work Thursday morning he learned his neighbors had also heard the noise.
"It wasn't like thunder rumbling," Hoover said. "I felt this. It actually shook the ground." When he reported to work he discovered even more people had heard the noise.
"It seems to have been heard all over Muskingum County and into South Zanesville and then into Licking County," Hoover said. "I heard some people reported hearing it at about 6:30 and then 7:30 in the morning. We just can't attribute it to anything."
The National Weather Service's station in Wilmington is equally lost, especially after hearing calls from the Cincinnati area. The only common factor is that each area was affected by Tuesday's ice storm.
Hansen did offer one idea. He described a phenomenon called a "frostquake," in which water seeping into the ground and freezing can cause the earth to break up and create localized bangs.
A spokesman for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base said the base wasn't running any exercises Wednesday night that could account for a sonic boom.
Action plan for killer asteroids
BBC News
Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:36 EST
A draft UN treaty to determine what would have to be done if a giant asteroid was on a collision course with Earth is to be drawn up this year.
The document would set out global policies including who should be in charge of plans to deflect any object.
It is the brainchild of the Association of Space Explorers, a professional body for astronauts and cosmonauts.
At the moment, Nasa is monitoring 127 near-Earth objects (NEO) that have a possibility of hitting the Earth.
The association has asked a group of scientists, lawyers, diplomats and insurance experts to draw up the recommendations.
The group will have its first meeting in Strasbourg in May this year. It is hoped the final document will be presented to the UN in 2009.
"We believe there needs to be a decision process spelled out and adopted by the United Nations," said Dr Russell Schweickart, one of the Apollo 9 astronauts and founder of the Association of Space Explorers.
Known threat
The threat of an asteroid hitting the Earth is being taken more and more seriously as more and more NEOs are found.
In the US, Congress has charged Nasa with the task of starting a more detailed search for life-threatening space rocks.
"Congress has said that Nasa's efforts to date are not sufficient to the threat," said the US space agency's Dr Steven Chesley.
"They have changed Nasa's targets so that the cataloguing and tracking of asteroids is part of its mandate."
Congress has asked the agency to mount a much more aggressive survey.
At the moment, Nasa tracks all objects greater than 700m (2,300ft) in diameter. The agency's new goal is to track all objects greater than 70m (230ft) in diameter.
To do this, the agency needs to use a new suite of telescopes.
Alternatives include building a new Nasa-owned system or investing in other proposed telescopes such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) or the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-Starrs).
Pan-Starrs is a wide-field telescope being developed at the University of Hawaii, whilst the LSST is a proposed ground-based instrument being developed by the not-for-profit LSST corporation based in the US.
Nasa estimates that there are about 20,000 potentially threatening asteroids yet to be discovered.
"Out of those thousands, there will be without question many that look like they might hit the Earth with a high enough probability that the public and everyone else will be concerned," said Dr Schweickart.
"This has gone from being an esoteric statistical argument to talking about real events," added Dr David Morrison, an astronomer at the Nasa's Ames Research Center.
Future plans
The UN draft treaty would establish who should be in charge in the event of an asteroid heading towards Earth, who would pay for relief efforts and the policies that should be adopted.
In addition, it would set out possible plans to deflect the object.
Ideas could include hitting the asteroid with a spacecraft or rocket to deflect its orbit.
Other less destructive proposals include a "gravity tug" that would simply hover over the asteroid and use gravity as a "towline" to change its path.
But any decision to deflect an NEO could come with its own set of conundrums for the UN, as changing its path may simply alter its final target.
"It's important to understand when you start to deflect an asteroid that certain countries are going to have accept an increase in risk to their populations in order to take the risk to zero for everyone," said Dr Schweickart.
It is difficult decisions like this which can only be addressed by the UN, the Association of Space Explorers believes.
And it is under no illusion that the process can be sorted out quickly.
"You have to act when things look like they are going to happen - if you wait until you know for certain, it's too late," said Dr Schweickart.
Experts who will draw up the treaty include Lord Rees, the English Astronomer Royal and head of the Royal Society; the ex-director of science at the European Space Agency, Roger Bonnet; and former UK government advisor Sir Crispin Tickell.
The proposals were outlined at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Francisco, US.
Comment: Where's Bruce Willis when we need him!
Green meteor flashes night skies
TORRANCE MENDEZ
The West Australian
Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:41 EST
A meteor with a green coloured tail flashed across Perth's skies last night, prompting several calls to Perth Observatory.
People as far south as Dunsborough and as far east as Chidlow reported seeing a flaming ball course through the heavens from about 9.30pm.
Observatory astronomer Andrew Williams said some witnesses reported seeing the meteor break up
"One hundred thousand tonnes of junk comes into earth's atmosphere each year," Mr Williams said. "Most of it is in the form of grains of dust and grains of sand and burns up in the atmosphere. That's a shooting star."
The bigger the flying object, the longer it remains visible.
"Anything that survives burning up on entering the earth's astmosphere usually breaks up in mid-air and disintegtrates, though some falls to the ground and we see a fireball 50km up in the sky. This was something bigger but nobody reported sounds so it wasn't particularly big or wasn't particularly close."
Perth Now
Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:42 EST
PERTH residents were treated to a natural sky show last night when a glowing green meteor lit the southeastern sky.
Perth Observatory astronomer Ralph Martin said reports of a big meteor began flooding into the observatory from all over the metropolitan area about 10.15pm.
"It was reportedly travelling from west to east and was breaking up as it went," Mr Martin said.
"It was apparently very bright and visible for several seconds."
Warnbro resident Warwick Hughes described the object as "a spectacular shooting star".
"It appeared due south and proceeded at a low angle towards the southeast," Mr Hughes said.
"Its bright solid track thickened as it progressed across a 30-degree sector of my vision, then several brilliant pale greenish globes separated off the head at which point I lost sight of it behind our roofline.
"I am 65 and cannot recall a more brilliant example of a meteor."
Peter Hancock of Belmont saw the object from his back yard.
"It was a big glowing globe trailing green fire and pieces fell from it as it descended," he said.
"At first I thought a plane had gone down over Perth Airport."
Mr Martin said the object was either a rock or a piece of space junk re-entering the atmosphere."
Netscape
Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:36 EST
|
©Ray Palmer |
Space Junk? |
Recorded Tuesday at about 2 am, the thirty minute long color film exposure also captured a bright but mysterious object that moved slowly across the sky for over an hour. Widely seen, the object began as a small point and expanded as it tracked toward the North (left), resulting in a comet-like appearance in this picture. What was it? Reports are now identifying the mystery glow with a plume from the explosion of a malfunctioned Russian rocket stage partially filled with fuel. The rocket stage was marooned in Earth orbit after a failed communication satellite launch almost a year ago on February 28, 2006. A substantial amount of debris from the breakup can be tracked.
They saw 'strange lights in the sky'
Larry Grard
Morning Sentinel
Sat, 24 Feb 2007 09:55 EST
It was about 7:30 Wednesday night when Gehri Rinaldi took time out from her son's 14th birthday party. She went outside to the front porch and lit a cigarette.
That's when she saw the strange lights in the sky. In all directions.
By the time the UFO show was over, Rinaldi and her son, Dalton Mosher, had seen weird, inexplicable sights.
"I saw four of them in a row, and I went, 'wow,'" Rinaldi recalled. "The lights were reddish-orange. I called Dalton out. We looked left and saw two more. And then we saw them going through the trees. That's how low they were."
The family's experience was one of at least four reported Wednesday -- all at about the same time and in the same general area -- to the Somerset County Communications Center.
There might be an explanation in the form of the Vermont Air National Guard.
Marie Endsley, Vermont Air Guard spokeswoman, said a unit did practice maneuvers in Maine on Wednesday night with three F-16 jet fighter planes. The training mission could explain the lights that several residents reported seeing fairly close to the ground.
"We were conducting our normal training missions and were flying through there," Endsley said. "They were for a short period of time."
Endsley said F-16s now fly lower than 7,000 feet. Flares, she said, might look reddish-orange, but would disintegrate well before hitting the ground.
Tom Hawley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, said there were no weather-related conditions Wednesday night that could have caused such sightings.
Other calls came from Skowhegan Road in Fairfield, Main Street in Norridgewock and Norridgewock Avenue in Skowhegan. The Fairfield caller reported seeing "strange lights in the sky heading south," while the Skowhegan caller reported seeing yellow lights in the sky over Skowhegan.
Somerset County Sheriff's Deputy Richie Putnam took the calls from Anson and Norridgewock. Putnam said neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the Brunswick Naval Air Station reported any flights in the area.
"(People) were seeing streaks of white light, and it wasn't anything that they recognized," Putnam said.
Rinaldi, who moved from Arizona to Anson only three weeks ago, tried in vain to photograph her close encounter with her 35 mm camera, but it jammed.
"It worked for me inside the house, for the birthday party," she said. "It shut itself off outside. It would not take a picture."
Rinaldi also said she saw one UFO that streaked sideways over the sky, like a comet. When she went inside to check the camera, she heard her son hollering.
"Mom, Mom, there's more!" Dalton Mosher yelled.
By that time, Mosher recalled, he was getting a little scared -- especially when he saw lights moving through the trees.
"There were a bunch more," he said. "One just shot across. It looked like it had a tail on it. I was just scared. I didn't know what to think of it."
Gehri Rinaldi said she doesn't spook easily.
"The part that startled me the most was when I went back out 30 or 40 minutes later to have a cigarette, and all the dogs were howling," she said.
UFO sightings were reported a week ago in the Farmington area. Lt. Niles Yeaton of the Franklin County Sheriff's Department said he thought they were flares from military planes in training. People in the area have heard low-flying jets at night, Yeaton added.
Somerset County Sheriff Barry A. DeLong said he doesn't dismiss stories of UFOs, because he has seen one.
It happened back in the 1970s, when he was on patrol one night in Bingham.
"I didn't want to talk about it," DeLong said. "I didn't want people to think I was crazy."
DeLong said the lights he saw were not far from the ground.
"They were hovering about 15 feet from my cruiser, late at night," the sheriff said.
"It had fixed lights that were spinning. It was huge, and oval-shaped. I knew it wasn't a jet fighter. It slowly started backing off toward Sugarloaf, and then at a terrific speed."
Incredibly bright meteor over Georgia
Free Republic
Sun, 25 Feb 2007 07:40 EST
[...] I was just outside in the back yard in Northern Georgia, and an incredibly bright light illuminated the dark yard like an arc lamp. I looked up and saw a meteor streaking overhead, white hot, which then broke up into orange, glowing fragments. This happened at 10:21PM EST. I apologize for posting something random like this, but it was astonishing. Perhaps it was a piece of space junk that reentered the atmosphere tonight. Did anyone else see this? It was truly spectacular.
Posted by member on Free Republic News forums.
Ice Falls From Sky, Crashes Into Family's Home
WFTV/AP
Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:43 EST
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©Signs of the Times |
HOLLAND, Pa. -- Around Pennsylvania this winter, there have been icy conditions both outside and in.
A Philadelphia-area family was jolted awake Friday when a chunk of ice fell from the sky and crashed through the roof of their home.
The ice tore through the roof and attic floor before landing in the home's foyer about 1 a.m.. The chunk landed between the married couple who lives there, Philadelphia TV station WCAU reported. No one was injured.
Authorities think the chunk may have come from an airplane flying overhead. The police department was investigating what took place, and will consult with the Federal Aviation Administration to figure out if a plane's evening route matches the location of the incident.
No one was injured, but there was substantial damage to the home, which is evident by the gaping hole in the roof.
There were minor electrical problems because the ice chunk smashed into a chandelier, the family said.
It's the second time in about a month that a Philadelphia-area home was smacked by ice. The earlier incident was also blamed on a passing airliner.
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