Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

South Africa: Giant Fireball in the Sky Baffles Cape Town Residents

Eyewitnesses in Cape Town's northern suburbs reported seeing a strange celestial sight on Monday night.

Shortly after 10pm many residents witnessed a giant fireball falling from the sky.

Marianne van Onselen, who lives in Uitsig, said she panicked when she looked out her window.

"It was like gee whiskers, what is that! And I got up, went to the wall outside in the back yard to see has something actually crashed, were there flames? There was nothing. It looked like it was very close."

Astronomer Enrico Oliver explained the object was more than likely a bigger version of a common occurrence.

"It's a much bigger version of what you might call a shooting star. These things are typically the size of a small pebble to a boulder-sized object that enters the atmosphere and then due to air friction just burns up."

Meteor

UK: Sussex Man Hit By Meteorite

Meteorite
© The ArgusSussex man hit by meteorite.
Sussex cricket fan Jan Marszel looked up in amazement as he saw a small, dark round object hurtle towards him on the boundary edge.

But it was not one of Luke Wright's mammoth pulls coming his way - it was a meteorite that had fallen from outer space - and nearly struck him on the head.

It's thought to be the first extra-terrestrial crash landing in the UK for nearly 20 years.

The 51-year-old had spent Wednesday afternoon in Uxbridge with friend Richard Haynes watching Sussex battle with Middlesex in a county championship division two clash.

The pair - both Sussex members - were sitting square of the wicket watching England's T20 hero Wright bat with Monty Panesar when they spotted the black, five-inch rock hurtling towards them. Mr Marszel, 51, an IT consultant from Blackboys, near Uckfield, said: "We were sitting at the boundary edge when all of a sudden, out of a blue sky, we saw this small dark object hurtling towards us.

UFO

US: Fireball over West Chester, Ohio, splits into pieces to form diamond shape

One large fireball spotted by an Ohio witness from the 5th floor of the Westchester Medical Center on July 16, 2010, split into multiple pieces and appeared to form a diamond shape in the sky, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

"My second reaction was we were about to be bombed, then it separated into three pieces, the middle piece remained larger than the two pieces on either side," the witness stated.

The witness reports that each piece maintained an equal distance between the others.

"Then they disappeared and as fast as they went two came back and then two more appeared to form a diamond, then a fifth appeared on the bottom right. The two on the left and right disappeared and appeared lower, then bottom left light moved diagonally toward upper right. "

When the witness realized photos were bad taken through glass, he (or she) ran down five flights of stairs to get to the street, and then discovered that only two objects were left - and they quickly disappeared. The entire sighting lasted about 10 minutes.

Westchester Medical Center is in West Chester Township, Butler County, in the southwestern piece of Ohio, where the population is about 60,000.

Question

'Alien' meteorites hit Bosnian man's house six times

bosnian, meteorite
© CENRadivoje Lajic and meteorites that hit his house
Radivoke Lajic, 50, said that his house being hit by rocks from space was the result of an extraterrestrial grudge.

"I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials," he said.

"I don't know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense.

"The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit six times has to be deliberate."

Mr Lajic, who lives in the village of Gornji Lajici in northern Bosnia, near Prijedor, said that the meteorite strikes always happen when it is raining.

The first meteorite struck his house in November 2007.

Scientists at Belgrade University have confirmed that the rocks are all meteorites.

Question

Fireball with tail over Perth, Western Australia

Posted: July 19, 2010

Date: July 18-19, 2010
Time: Approx: 7:00 p.m. - 8: 00 p.m.
Location of Sighting: Perth WA Australia.
Number of witnesses: 2 - 4
Number of Objects: 1
Shape of Objects: Round, star shape.

Full Description of Event/Sighting: I saw exactly the same phenomenon like a couple of husband and wife witnessed on May 23rd of 2009. (http://www.ufoinfo.com/sightings/australia/090523.shtml) On July 18th 2010, I was walking along Victoria Park and suddenly noticed a large bright star in the sky. It was shining like a fire ball unlike any other stars at a low altitude. I told my sister and we both stared at it along the way to our home. When we almost reached home (note that the object doesn't move yet its light changed intermittently), we both saw the object faded and shined again and it faded until we couldn't see it anymore.

UFO

US: Orange fireball objects over North Suburbs Chicao, Illinois

Posted: July 13, 2010

Date: July 13, 2010
Time: 10:00 p.m.

Orange fireball thingy, it as moving at a medium pace from south to north and eventually slowing, lowering, then disappearing. I watched it with my friend after coming out of a restaurant for a good 3 minutes. We have no clue as to what it was. I thought it was a meteor at first, but obviously lasted too long and didn't travel in a completely straight direction.

I looked on the internet to see if anyone else reported anything and it is weird to find a similar sighting in the same place around the same time just a few days before.

Meteor

Mysterious fireball reported near Shawnee, Oklahoma


UFO

Washington, US: 'Fireball' Reported Over Vancouver Skies

Brenda Ellis was getting ready for bed Thursday night when her brother called her outside and pointed to the sky. Before she could respond, Ellis said her daughter, Ashley Ellis, let out a shrill scream.

Darting back and forth in the night sky were what Ellis described as four unidentified flying objects. Yes, UFOs.

To be specific, they were four orange bulbs that dashed overhead until they ascended higher and higher, turned to white and disappeared, according to Ellis.

"They were super quiet, and so bright and so close," said Ellis, who was in the backyard of her Cascade Park home when she saw them taking off into the southern sky.

The National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle confirmed Ellis' report and noted there two other accounts Thursday, one each in Vancouver and Seattle.

"What the objects were? I have no idea," said Peter Davenport, the director of the UFO center. "My suspicion is we'll never know."

The local reports, though, come on the heels of nearly 100 reports Davenport said the center has received since July 1, all detailing similar sightings. Reports, he said, have stretched from coast to coast, California to Connecticut.

Meteor

US: Meteorite Punches Hole in Driveway

A smoldering chunk of rock from outer space punctured the driveway of a home in Decatur on Sunday.

"We know how to celebrate the Fourth of July the right way," said Margie Small. "We don't have fireworks. We have meteorites."

Small discovered the meteorite early Sunday afternoon at their home on Crestridge Court.

Meteor

Meteor Dazzles Viewers Across Washington Region

A bright fireball flashed across the skies of the Washington region last week, visible to people in the grandstand at a baseball game, as well as to motorists, pedestrians and people standing on suburban decks.

The American Meteor Society logged more than 30 reports of the Thursday night event, from the Washington metropolitan area to Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia. Almost all placed the time at about 9:55 p.m.

"It was a very bright object," said Chris Wood, who saw it from the deck of a house in Potomac. "It was so bright that the trees cast shadows" in its light, he said.

"It just kept going until it was past the horizon," he added.

"It was the brightest I've ever seen at night," he said.

Wood said the meteor appeared green, but some of the other reports on the society's Web site described it as blue or yellow. A report from Stamford, Conn., said it had a green head and a yellow trail.