© Gloucester Citizen, UKA mocked up image of what the meteor is said to have looked like.
The mystery of the 'bright object' seen falling out of the sky over Churchdown has been solved - it seems that it was a fireball meteor.
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 #omgwearallgoingtodie
- Virtual Astronomer (@VirtualAstro) December 19, 2013
One 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.
"
For the next few days coming home from work, along the Tewkesbury Road and then Staverton, to Churchdown,
the same light was there. We were wondering what it was but I haven't seen it since. It was definitely not an aeroplane, too big for that and it never moved and was all lit up, but not something I have seen before."
Another eyewitness Maggie Bell said: "I spotted this going home two weeks ago. This was near Churchdown Hill or that's what it looked like.
It didn't move from its spot for the duration of my journey home, was too low for a star and too high for the Churchdown Hill light. I am really intrigued."
Very bright fireball/ meteor seen this morning by many in the UK
- 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?
Why are the 'authorities' playing this silly game?
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.
13 ... And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth,