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Best of the Web: American Meteor Society receives over 500 reports of Chelyabinsk-like event over U.S. Midwest, 26 December 2013
© Unknown
An amateur meteor spotter caught the moment when a fireball flew across Iowa's sky Thursday evening. Tim Cline says he has two cameras pointing at the sky at his Williamson observatory. He says the footage shows a meteor flying north towards Des Moines. Consistent with witness reports, the timestamp puts the bright object flying by at 5:41 p.m.
Channel 13 received several reports of a colorful fireball across the metro and even on the Iowa/Missouri border.
The National Weather Service said they also caught some footage of it. They later backtracked saying the moving object in their video was more likely Venus.
The evening sky was well described by our viewers. Mercedes Sholley posted on the Channel 13 Facebook page, "I watched it change colors from the yellow red and orange to green blue and purple right before it sizzled out and went black and I watched it break off into at least 3 pieces."
Jakob Kranovich also described it, "I literally drove right underneath it. It looked like a giant firework going sideways. It gave off a bright green glowing color (I'm dead serious) and broke up and sparks showered everywhere and faded out. Happened too fast to get a picture and I was driving as well."
"It was awesome. Unfortunately no pics but I don't think I'll get that image out of my mind," Jamie Croatt commented.
Schoolnet8 camera
Channel 13 received several reports of a colorful fireball across the metro and even on the Iowa/Missouri border.
The National Weather Service said they also caught some footage of it. They later backtracked saying the moving object in their video was more likely Venus.
The evening sky was well described by our viewers. Mercedes Sholley posted on the Channel 13 Facebook page, "I watched it change colors from the yellow red and orange to green blue and purple right before it sizzled out and went black and I watched it break off into at least 3 pieces."
Jakob Kranovich also described it, "I literally drove right underneath it. It looked like a giant firework going sideways. It gave off a bright green glowing color (I'm dead serious) and broke up and sparks showered everywhere and faded out. Happened too fast to get a picture and I was driving as well."
"It was awesome. Unfortunately no pics but I don't think I'll get that image out of my mind," Jamie Croatt commented.
Schoolnet8 camera
It probably wasn't Superman who drew central Iowans' eyes to the sky Thursday evening. A meteor is the more likely explanation for the streak of light that reportedly lasted just a few seconds.
The National Weather Service was able to catch a ball of light on one of its cameras in Iowa City, but thinks its footage may show the planet Venus, which was also visible around the same time.
Kurt Kotenberg of the NWS said the agency has received accounts of people seeing a "fireball."
"We're looking at the reports, also," Kotenberg said. "The interesting thing's about it, Venus was visible in the sky just after sunset."
Social media posts from Iowans claiming to have seen the potential meteor indicate it appeared over central Iowa skies about 5:40 p.m., although it seems few eyewitnesses had a camera ready.
© Tim MauneThe fireball was spotted in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee.
As of 9:15 p.m., the American Meteor Society had recorded six reports from people who spotted this fireball in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee between 4:17 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. CST.
One of our Facebook fans, Tim Maune, was able to capture the image on camera.
All of the fireball spotters say there was no sound accompanying the fireball.
So what was it? According to the AMS, a fireball is another name for a very bright meteor, one with about the same brightness as Venus in the morning or evening sky.
If you saw the fireball, the AMS wants to hear from you. File a report online, with as many details as you can remember
© James Nielsen/StaffCatherine Jones prepares to have the dust washed from her car Monday at the Car Spa in Houston. The orange stuff that drizzled all over the city came from iron-rich soil in Mexico.
None of the above.
The dust traveled about 600 miles, in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere, from iron-rich soils in central Mexico to Houston.
The dust originated in a region of Mexico containing a lot of iron at the surface, giving the dirt a "rusty" or "orange" look to it, said Andrew Artzer, a local forecaster who became curious about the dust after seeing it Sunday morning on his car. "It's much the same reason why the dust storms in northwest Texas and western Oklahoma are usually red."
Comment: There is also another possibility - read the following articles:
Weird red rain in India panics people . . . 'blood red' rain falls
Rare showers of red rain fell in Sewanagala (Monaragala) and Manampitiya (Polonnaruwa)
Red rain caused by disintegration of comet: study
Alien particles found in 'comet rain' put under microscope at Welsh university
Red rain in Kannur, India May have origins in comets
Traces of alien life in Kerala rain: Report
Blood rain heads for southern Sweden
Strange noises and flashes of light are what hundreds of people say they saw and heard Wednesday night in Montgomery County.
The Montgomery County dispatch says they got a few hundred calls from people reporting hearing several loud noises, and some people reported seeing flashes of lights.
Local gas companies did not report any ruptured lines.
"Could be fracturing from the mountains when they fall, but that doesn't explain the flashing light. We do have meteor showers right now. Could be meteors coming through and the sonic booms were from them entering the atmosphere," said resident Janet Johnson.
The cause of those noises and lights are still under investigation.
The Montgomery County dispatch says they got a few hundred calls from people reporting hearing several loud noises, and some people reported seeing flashes of lights.
Local gas companies did not report any ruptured lines.
"Could be fracturing from the mountains when they fall, but that doesn't explain the flashing light. We do have meteor showers right now. Could be meteors coming through and the sonic booms were from them entering the atmosphere," said resident Janet Johnson.
The cause of those noises and lights are still under investigation.
© Gloucester Citizen, UKA mocked up image of what the meteor is said to have looked like.
Scores of Gloucestershire people have reported seeing the object. The most recent sighting was at 8am yesterday but there have been reports of other meteor sighting earlier in the month.
It is also thought 2014 is going to a bumper year for meteor attacks.
Daytime fireball spotted over Sweden yesterday and another over the UK this morning! This can only mean one thing #omgwearallgoingtodieOne eyewitness Gill Brimfield said: "My husband and I were driving home from Evesham last Wednesday evening and spotted a really big bright light in the sky, which was not a star. It was not moving and by the time we got to Churchdown it was still there.
- Virtual Astronomer (@VirtualAstro) December 19, 2013
Comment: A 'mocked up image', 'expert' claims that bear no resemblance to eyewitness reports, and a warning about meteor fireballs "attacking us in 2014".... what a strange news report.
What we've generally found to date is that the media is reluctant to acknowledge fireball meteor sightings at all, nevermind that their numbers are increasing all the time. But lately, there seems to be some prestidigitation, some sleight of hand, going on with the news around this topic, something which really jumped out at us in the above article.
Here we have a local UK news outlet uncritically accept the explanation provided by 'virtual astronomer' that this 'bright light in the sky' was a 'fireball meteor', despite the eyewitnesses all stating that the object was stationary, and that it reappeared in the same spot in the sky on successive nights... so, obviously, they were not seeing a 'fireball meteor'.
We wonder in what direction the eyewitnesses were facing, because it rather sounds like it could have been the planet Venus. Along with Sirius, Venus appears in the evening skies this time of year, making them seem brighter than usual.
So why then would a regular newspaper
- publish a story about a non-event with a 'mocked up image' that looks nothing like what eyewitnesses described, but which does look very similar to photos that have been taken of daytime fireballs streaking through the sky in recent years;
- suggest that "2014 is going to a bumper year for meteor attacks", thereby tacitly acknowledging that fireball meteor events are increasing worldwide, and - more importantly - priming people to expect a lot more fireball activity;
- quote an 'astronomer' who falsely claims that this non-event was a fireball meteor, yet who acknowledges that they're being reported worldwide;
- simultaneously mock the phenomenon by including the 'astronomer's' tweet that included 'Oh my God, we're all going to die' as a Twitter hashtag?
We suspect that what's going on here is a combination of ignorant people seeing stuff and the authorities playing on their ignorance to confuse the issue.
The AMS has received over 40 reports so far about a fireball over central Tennessee last night around 8:20 central time. The event was captured by two cameras in the NASA All Sky Fireball Network operated by Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
© NASA / Bill CookeSuper Bolide over Tennessee – December 17th, 2013
Comment: The Lunar Meteorite Hunters blog received an additional 116 reports about this large meteor fireball over the U.S. Midwest.
Regarding the 'Dual Suns' mentioned by 'Fire in the Sky News' channel host, 'MrMBB333', the Twin Sun theory makes sense to us too:
Here's what the AMS fireball data looks like from 2005 to date: