Fire in the SkyS


Fireball

Eyes on the skies after 'meteor' spotted above Dundee, Scotland

Beth Cherryman
The Tele.co.uk
Tue, 10 Dec 2013 18:14 UTC
Fireball
© Alison HepburnAlison Hepburn sent us this picture of an object hurtling through the sky above Dundee.
An extra-terrestrial flash of light was snapped shooting across the Dundee sky.

The image, taken by city woman Alison Hepburn, shows an object burning through the skies over Glenconnor Drive. The 26-year-old science student said she did a double-take when she noticed an exceptionally bright light overhead.

She said: "It was just after 9am. It was the light I noticed - it was really, really bright. You know when you glance at something and then you glance back again? At first I thought it was an aeroplane, but I realised it couldn't have been. I took pictures and in the space of two minutes it was gone."

The Alloway Terrace resident added: "I wondered if it might be what's left of the comet that broke up recently."

But Dundee Astronomical Society secretary David Paterson said it was more likely to be a meteor - fire-hot dust and rocks tearing through space.
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Fireball 2

Fireball over Odda, Norway


Aftenposten.no
Sun, 08 Dec 2013 16:16 UTC
Fireball over Odda
Fireball over Odda
Fireball over Odda may be a meteor. The Norwegian Meteor Network are asking people to be aware aorund Ringdal lake in Odda. There may have rained meteorites this week.

On Wednesday evening , at 19.33 according to calculations of the meteorite network a meteor went up in flames in the sky close to the border to Hardangervidda near Odda in Hordaland.

Comment: See video at source : Aftenposten.no

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Meteor

Researchers confirm meteor as source of flash and boom west of Montreal

Scott Sutherland
Yahoo News - Geekquinox
Sat, 30 Nov 2013 00:00 UTC

Tuesday night, just before 8 p.m. Eastern Time, a bright flash of light and a sonic boom to the west of Montreal sent people to Twitter and Facebook to flood the internet with speculation about what it could have been. It took a couple of days, but researchers have now confirmed that it was a meteor that exploded high above the ground.

There's still no video or photos of the meteor, due to the cloud cover from the snowstorm that was passing through the area at the time. However, according to CBC News, researchers from the University of Western Ontario used sonic data collected from sensors on the ground to trace the path of the meteor from north to south, and estimate the size of the rock at around 20 centimetres in diameter. If it belonged to the most common type of meteor (ordinary chondrites), at that size it probably tipped the scales at around 14 kilograms, and would have been a fireball or possibly even a bolide.
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Meteor

Another overhead explosion? Unexplained blast concerns Blair County, Pennsylvania, residents


6WJAC
Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:34 UTC
An unexplained blast Thursday has local residents concerned and shaken up. The shock waves were felt within about a 12-mile radius in the Morrison's Cove area of Martinsburg. Police said they got reports from all over the area asking what caused what people are describing as a blast. There are no reports of any injuries or damage, but there is still no explanation for the blast and police said they've ruled out fracking.

Comment: Interestingly enough, for the past several days there have been other cases of "unexplained blasts" and "strange explosions". Connection? We definitely think so.

'Massive explosion' in North San Diego county still a mystery
Big explosion in Jackson, Indiana 'a mystery'
Loud explosions rock houses in Connecticut, authorities haven't a clue what caused them

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Fireball 2

Meteor confirmed as cause of loud boom in Quebec, Ontario


Astrowatch
Fri, 29 Nov 2013 13:40 UTC
Meteor
© CTV News ChannelMeteor may have lit up the night sky - Astronomers search for answers after sonic boom.
It's now confirmed: the loud boom and flash of light many people spotted Tuesday evening from Montreal as far west as Ottawa was a meteor entering the earth's atmosphere. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario said the rock from space passed over Montreal at around 8 p.m. from north to south. They were able to confirm the phenomenon by sounds from shock waves picked up by acoustic ground sensors around Montreal and upper New York state. NASA's Meteor Environment Office had been searching for footage of a meteor captured by its cameras, but cameras were obscured by thick clouds.

Geologist Richard Herd, a retired curator of the National Meteorite Collection for the federal government, said all indications suggested it was a meteoroid. That's a rock from space that passes through the Earth's atmosphere.

"It came in very rapidly...and so that's indicative. There was some ballistic shock from this thing, which is typical even of a small object," Herd said.

Comment: News coverage of the event, courtesy of Global Toronto:



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Fireball 3

Canadian eyewitness captures photos of "a really big, big rock engulfed in flames", but 'the experts' say it was just a jet contrail over Yellowknife, Northwest Territories


CBC.ca
Thu, 05 Dec 2013 16:51 UTC
Image
Earlier this week, CBC acquired some photos of what appeared to be a fireball or meteor above Yellowknife.

Mathieu Brouillard took the photos Monday morning at about 10 a.m. He says he and other onlookers watched what appeared to be a fireball make its way along the horizon and fade away.

"Once I took some pictures then it really got their attention because you were able to see them on the camera how it's not a plane, it's definitely a rock of some sort just engulfed in flames," he said. "A really big, big rock engulfed in flames. Definitely hot."

CBC showed the photos to experts on meteors.

Alan Hildebrand is an associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Calgary and the co-ordinator of Canada's fireball reporting centre.

Comment: Hang on a second; on the one hand this 'expert' tells us this was not a fireball, but then he states that the small remote town of Yellowknife "could witness several fireballs every year"?!

What's it gonna be?! Talk about double-speak!

We're siding with the people on this one - it was probably yet another fireball.

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Fireball 5

Bright, multi-colored fireball streaks slowly across Colorado night sky


KUSA TV - 9NEWS
Thu, 05 Dec 2013 00:58 UTC
Viewers called and emailed 9NEWS to report seeing a bright and colorful light in the sky Wednesday night.

Many said they saw the streak of light around 9pm and described it as moving slower than most shooting stars.

They also described colors of green, orange and yellow associated with the light. 9NEWS received reports from Denver, Aurora, Greeley and other locations in the state.

An astronomy and physics professor with Metropolitan State University, Dr. Kamran Sahami, said the green color suggests a meteorite made up of rock, possibly a metal such as nickel.

9NEWS has not confirmed the exact source of the light.
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Fireball 5

'Massive explosion' in North San Diego county still a mystery

Jessica Onsurez
CurrentArgus
Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:56 UTC
Carlsbad - Did your house shake on Sunday afternoon? You weren't alone. The cause of the loud boom and ground tremors felt and heard citywide on Sunday remains a mystery.

Theories about everything from oil rig explosions to shotgun blasts have been proposed, but city and county officials say they have no explanation as to what rattled windows and frightened animals just before 5 p.m. Sunday.

Many assumed the noise was the result of a sonic boom by military aircraft flying out of Holloman Air Force Base, but the base wasn't conducting any flights that day, said Holloman's Elah Murray.

"We stopped night flying on the 22nd of November," Murray said.

Tacy Farmer said that she was sitting in the living room of her home on North Lake Street Sunday when she and her daughter felt the boom resonate through the house.

"We all kind of paused and looked at each other, wondering 'did you feel that'," Farmer said.

"The whole house trembled and the windows shook," she said.

Residents across the city felt a similar phenomenon.

Comment: For the probable answer, look no further than the Fire in the Sky section of SOTT.net.

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Fireball 4

Big explosion in Jackson, Indiana, 'a mystery'


Chesterton Tribune
Mon, 02 Dec 2013 18:48 UTC
The cause of a boom--a pretty darn loud BOOM--heard Saturday night at least as far west as Sand Creek, and at least as far east as Westville, remains unknown.

One Chesterton Tribune reader reported that the boom, sounding like a "loud explosion," occurred around 10 p.m. and "rumbled houses for five seconds." A Duneland firefighter, meanwhile, reported that it also activated car alarms.

Tom Shapen, assistant chief of the Liberty Township Volunteer Fire Department, met Westville Fire Chief Sean Jacks at the scene--to the extent that there was any scene at all. Together, Shapen told the Tribune, he and Jacks conducted a search of their two jurisdictions but were unable to find any sign of an explosion or any indication of what the boom might have been or what might have caused it.

"It remains undetermined," Shapen said.

Porter County Sheriff's Police officers also responded, Sheriff Dave Lain said, and similarly turned up nothing. "No damage, no isolation even of where exactly it occurred."

Lain's best guess: "Some sort of a firework." If so, a very loud one.

Comment: SOTT.net's best guess: yet another overhead meteor explosion.

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Fireball 3

UK resident thinks meteorite may have hit house

Simon Ward
BBC News
Sun, 01 Dec 2013 12:30 UTC
Lawrence Parkin from Jacksdale, Nottinghamshire said he was woken in the night by a tile falling from his roof.

In the morning he found large chunks of rock scattered around his front garden.

Experts at Nottingham University said he had possibly been hit by the remains of an iron rich meteorite. The pieces are now being sent to a London museum for further verification.
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