Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 4

Hundreds in Ireland see fireball 'brighter than the full moon'

Daragh Brophy
thejournal.ie
Sat, 22 Nov 2014 11:15 UTC
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Astronomy Ireland says its received hundreds of sighting reports since Tuesday night - when what was described as a 'giant fireball' was seen blazing across Ireland's skies.

From Cork and Dublin to Belfast and Donegal - the heavenly object was spotted pretty much everywhere.

TheJournal.ie also had quite a few reports on the subject - as did BBC Northern Ireland and a raft of other media outlets.

"Clearly seen falling right to left over the sea towards Drogheda from Balbriggan at around 5.40pm, like a falling star for about 3-4 seconds before it burned out," was how Dubliner Jim Whelan described it.

"My son saw it this evening. He thought it might have been a giant shooting star, a UFO, or molten lava (he's 9 which I think explains the variety of possibilities ;-). He's hugely excited now to think it may have been part of an asteroid."

Comment: This is just one of several that have been spotted this week. Still unexplained, is the 'event' that turned night into day in Urals, Russia.

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Fireball 3

Meteor with flame-like tail spotted over Atlanta, GA

Michael King
WXIATV - Atlanta
Fri, 21 Nov 2014 18:57 UTC
leonid meteor
© en.wikipedia.orgLeonid meteor
More than a dozen reports were received Thursday evening by 11Alive News and by the American Meteor Society of a fireball over parts of metro Atlanta.

The reports began coming at about 9:30 p.m., with reports from the city of Atlanta, Alpharetta, Dalton, Johns Creek, Austell, Senoia, Lagrange, Loganville, Powder Springs, Villa Rica, and as far away as Macon.

Most of the reports described a flame-like tail on the meteor. No sound was heard from those reporting what they saw.

Astronomically, the Leonid meteor shower generally occurs every year between the 5th and the 30th of November, with a peak of November 15 to November 20. Meteors associated with this shower are generally tied to the passage of Comet Temple-Tuttle.
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Fireball

A bird, a plane or a meteor? 'Unidentified flying object' spotted off Charlottetown

Stephen Roberts
TheAurora.ca
Tue, 18 Nov 2014 19:39 UTC
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© Blanche WardOn November 17, Blanche Ward of Charlottetown sighted an unidentified object flying slowly across the sky. She initially spotted two trails of smoke before identifying a small red dot with her camera.
When Blanche Ward of Charlottetown stepped outside her door on Monday afternoon, she spotted something unusual: there were two small trails of smoke slowly flying high across the sky.

Ward immediately rushed back into her house and grabbed her camera. When she zoomed in and took her shot, she saw a small red dot with the two lines of smoke trailing behind.

She says the object remained in the sky for one or two minutes before dropping below the horizon and out of view.
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Fireball 3

Enormous overhead meteor explosion? Strange glow in the sky turns night into day in the Urals, Russia


The Siberian Times
Tue, 18 Nov 2014 22:23 UTC
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© Vyacheslav BulatovA local observatory indicated nothing fell from the sky on the day of the flash.

Emergency services refuse to comment cause of extraordinary blast in the dark sky.

A huge flash lit up the early evening darkness, as shown by images taken from a dashcam on a road close to Yekaterinburg. The sky suddenly turns orange-red at 17.39 local time (though the dashcam records it as 18.39). For the next 11 seconds an orange light with yellow and white in the middle engulfs the entire sky.

'For a few moments night turned into dazzling day, then everything went dark again,' said one witness.

The explosion came on 14 November but images only appeared of it today; strangely no sound was picked up.

Theories for the explosion included a missile or an object from space. Yet it did not have the same shape or pattern as the Chelyabinsk meteorite which exploded over the Urals in February 2013.


Comment: This was probably another massive meteor fireball event. We suspect that a distinct fragmentation trail cannot be seen because there was very dense cloud coverage close to the ground, while the incoming object would have been very high up. The intense glow could be due to the same effects we saw over Recife, Brazil last month.

These seem to be plasma effects as incoming bodies interact with different charge layers of the atmosphere. Here's what NASA reported about Comet Siding-Spring's close brush with Mars last month:
"Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument detected major changes as dust from the comet slammed into atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere, high-energy collisions that caused the thin air to glow."
With this, the Recife event, and the 'Pacific lights' event the month before that, it looks like our atmosphere has reached a certain threshold of comet dust saturation.

Perhaps ancients' reports of 'the sky being on fire' are more literal than previously assumed?

Let the fireworks commence!

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Fireball 2

Meteor sighted passing over Georgia, Southeast U.S.

Michael King
WXIA-TV, Atlanta
Tue, 11 Nov 2014 22:44 UTC
SouthEast meteor
© American Meteor SocietyThe American Meteor Society received at least 10 reports of a meteor over the Southeast on Tuesday, November 11, 2014.
At least five reports of a meteor going overhead were received from Georgia Tuesday evening - and up to 10 reports came from neighboring states according to the American Meteor Society. The reports came from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia between 6:45 and 7 p.m. Tuesday. According to the reports, the fireball appeared blue to white to orange in color as it passed overhead.

The meteor did not make a sound as it passed according to all of the reports received. The Georgia reports came from Blackshear, Ranger, Cumming, Morven and along Interstate 20 east of Atlanta. Other reports came from Greenville and Pawleys Island in South Carolina, from Garner, NC and Moneta, VA.

Two reported meteors were seen over Georgia's skies last week -- one on Monday and another on Thursday. Scientists say that meteors pass through the atmosphere with regularity. Two major observatories in north Georgia -- one at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega and a second one at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville -- are part of a network of six cameras across the Southeast and 15 such observatories across the nation that watch the skies for fireballs.
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Meteor

Lafayette police, residents still confused by unexplained boom

Jeremy Brilliant
WTHR
Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:50 UTC
It rattled homes and the nerves of people living in Lafayette, but the questions about a late night boom linger long after it occurred.


The buzz Monday at the Lafayette Brewing Company and all around the city was about what happened the night before.

"It was very weird. Very weird," said Jennifer Russell.

"It was more of a solid thud, it wasn't so (explosion sound), it was more of a 'boom,' then nothing happened," said Jim Surface.

Around 11 p.m. Sunday, there was an explosion, or something like it.

"It was a sudden, 'Wow, it's there, it's loud' and then it's over. Almost as quickly as it started, it was done," Russell said.

The calls came pouring into 911.

"Yes. It's very weird," said Lafayette Police Lt. Brian Gossard.

Comment: Unfortunately, as this article shows, people still lack awareness about the real nature of the cosmic threat and how to interpret the signs.



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Fireball 4

Best of the Web: 'That huge Texas fireball' captured on dashcam - Just one of many meteors recently exploding over U.S.

Dylan Stableford
Yahoo News
Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:37 UTC
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A meteor five times brighter than a full moon lit up the skies above Texas over the weekend, officials said Monday. Residents across Texas reported seeing the streaking fireball at around 8:45 p.m. Saturday. The American Meteor Society, a group that tracks fireball sightings, said it had received more than 300 reports from witnesses in the Lone Star State. "This was definitely what we call a 'fireball,' which by definition is a meteor brighter than the planet Venus," Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, told CNN. "This was a very bright event." So bright that it was picked up on a NASA camera more than 500 miles away in the New Mexico mountains, Cooke said, "which makes it extremely unusual."


Comment: See also:

Video of huge fireball meteor streaking over Eastern U.S. states

It should be clear by now that the dramatic rise in observations of meteor fireballs is out of the ordinary and cannot solely be attributed to a rise in cam-phones and dash-cams. Something wicked this way comes...



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Fireball 4

Fireballs and shaking ground in central Texas

Jim Spencer
KXAN
Sat, 08 Nov 2014 23:28 UTC
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KXAN viewers from all over Central Texas reported seeing a meteor Saturday night that many described as "lighting up the sky." Reports indicate the meteor, likely a small rock or piece of space debris, entered the atmosphere about 8:45 p.m.

While KXAN cannot confirm the authenticity of the video below, viewers who have seen the clip say it appears to be the same meteor they saw Saturday night. The YouTube user who posted the video says it was captured using a dashcam while driving in San Antonio.

Some witnesses describe seeing two objects, and a greenish-blue tail - likely from the meteor breaking apart. Some say it appeared as bright as fireworks, briefly turning night into day.

Comment: It should be clear by now that the dramatic rise in observations of fireballs is far out of the ordinary and cannot solely be attributed to a rise in observers and their technology. See below video which has summarized some of SOTT.net's research and views on the matter:


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Fireball 4

Another video showing the fireball seen over Japan on Monday, Nov 4


BBC
Tue, 04 Nov 2014 14:41 UTC
fireball over japan
People in western Japan have reported sightings of a sparkling light racing across the sky on Monday evening.

Experts say it was probably a "fireball" meteor - a piece of an asteroid that ignites upon entering Earth's atmosphere - and any surviving fragments mostly likely ended up in the sea.

A remote controlled camera at Fukuoka airport recorded an object emitting a strong green light, while another camera at Hakata port showed a faint orange light.
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Fireball 4

Video of huge fireball meteor streaking over Eastern U.S. states


MyFox8.com
Tue, 04 Nov 2014 16:24 UTC
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© American Meteorological SocietyMap of meteor sightings on Monday evening, Nov. 3, 2014
A large meteor was spotted streaking across the skies of central North Carolina and several other states on Monday evening. People in Greensboro, High Point, Asheville, Fayetteville and Raleigh reported seeing the fireball around 6:20 p.m. ET. Several eyewitnesses described the fireball as having a green tail. There were similar reports from eyewitnesses in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Kentucky and several other states.

"AMS received 89 reports about this fireball seen over GA, IN, KY, MD, NC, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA and WV on November 3rd 2014," AMS wrote on its website. Steve Sobel captured a fireball on video over Chicago around 6:25 p.m. CT, an hour after similar reports in North Carolina and other states. It remains unclear if the sighting is related to similar sightings on the East Coast.

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