LET'S pause for a moment and ponder Elizabeth Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama.
On this day in 1954 she was napping in her living room when a meteorite the size of grapefruit crashed through the ceiling, bounced off her radio, and gave her a nasty bruise.
This is the only time in human history that we can say with certainty someone was hit by a space rock.
Comment: Poor guy. He still thinks that our political leaders would clue us in in such an eventuality!
LACON - At 5:28 p.m. Tuesday, Morgan County 911 lines began ringing. A brilliant lime-green light had appeared, callers said, possibly a downed aircraft.
Callers to The Daily described the same thing, some saying they saw an object falling from the sky and breaking into pieces before the light appeared.
Comment: Sure, it was only space junk. Nothing to worry about here, folks. Move along now. Don't fret about the increase in reports oif bright fireballs. It's only space junk. Really. Have we ever lied to you before?
In what sounds like a scene from the 70s movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, people in South Australia and western Victoria have deluged police and media with reports of a spectacular meteor sighting.
Residents in the northwest part of the valley say they heard a large boom that was followed by several seconds of shaking Monday afternoon.
Channel 8 Eyewitness News received calls from people in the areas of Summerlin Parkway and Lone Mountain, and 215 and Cheyenne.
RESIDENTS in central and western Victoria have reported seeing a bright light, possibly a comet, streaking across the sky just before sunset.
Callers to ABC Radio reported seeing the bright green coloured object shooting westward in the sky from Bendigo to Horsham in the state's northwest down to Colac in the southwest.
For years the mainstream scientific community has fed us the line that there is nothing to worry about down on Earth from meteor impacts because the really big ones only happen once every 500,000 to 1,000,000 years. Now, a small group of scientists are challenging that view:
Robert Roy Britt
MSNBCWed, 15 Nov 2006 12:00 UTC
The annual Leonid meteor shower could produce a strong outburst this weekend for residents of eastern North America and Western Europe.
A brief surge of activity is expected begin around 11:45 p.m. ET Saturday. In Europe, that corresponds to early Sunday morning at 4:45 GMT. The outburst could last up to two hours.
Hamburg - In a scenario resembling the dramatic conclusion to a TV crime drama, paleo-forensics experts have produced new evidence to show that the dinosaurs were bumped off by a different meteor than the one that has received the rap for their extinction.
The German palaeontologists insist that a mysterious meteor or comet must have done the deadly deed - long after the notorious Yucatan meteor that has hitherto been blamed.
A chief scientist claims a loud bang on the north Cornwall and Devon border was caused by a large meteor exploding.
David Carcary from the West Cornwall Astronomical Society said a meteor had created the sonic boom before burning up after it entered the atmosphere.
He said the lack of any seismological signals indicates it burned up before it hit the ground.
DINOSAURS were killed off by a meteor that hit the Earth 300,000 years after the one blamed for their extinction, a scientist has claimed.
Dr Gerta Keller, from Princeton University, New Jersey, insists the Chicxulub impact off the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago could not on its own have wiped out the dinosaurs.
Comment: Poor guy. He still thinks that our political leaders would clue us in in such an eventuality!