PORT Macquarie found itself in the path of a meteorite on Monday morning as the speeding fireball shot through the earth's atmosphere.
The sky lit up, the night rumbled and the earth shook.
Where it was heading and where it landed, nobody knows.
But to witness the strange phenomenon residents had to be within a 50km radius of the meteorite's path; and there was no shortage of witnesses in Port Macquarie.
Mark Shelton had to pinch himself when he woke up.
Western Victoria, Melbourne - Tension gripped Western Victoria residents after witnessing bright light in heavens for two straight nights believed to be a meteor form outer space.
ABC News reported that residents of Ballarat, west of Melbourne, said that they saw a bright orange-colored light in the sky about 10 p.m Tuesday.
Reports said that the bright light looks like a Unidentified Flying Object (UFO).
Jeff Haldiman News Tribune Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:49 UTC
Around 12:20 p.m. Monday, a series of loud booms was heard in many parts of Jefferson City and Cole County.
The origin remains a mystery, but an aircraft breaking the sound barrier is considered the most likely cause.
Numerous calls were received at the 911 center. Some reports indicated the noises rocked and shook buildings, but authorities reported no damage being attributed to the booms.
It's a story worthy of an "Indiana Jones" sequel: Drawn by outlandish legends, a controversial collector journeys to Peru, purchases pieces of a rare meteorite under shady circumstances, then has to hightail it across the border to Bolivia with police in hot pursuit. Now the plot is nearing its resolution - and the finale could make another meteorite-size splash.
Luckily for astronomers, it was a Friday night in the autumn. That meant that hundreds of thousands of people were at high school football games, many with camcorders at the ready to preserve any gridiron heroics. What they preserved as well, from at least 16 different locations from Kentucky to New York, was the path of a fireball across the sky as it streaked northeastward at better than ten miles a second.
Peru's official government news agency reported yesterday that the crater where a meteorite fell in Puno, Peru was being guarded by 20 of Peru's National Police officers.
Chief of the police station, Major Victor Anaya stated that the officers had been placed near the meteorite landing site to keep a group of U.S. citizens from trafficking pieces of the meteorite.
Comment: It seems strange to call it a meteorite landing site, but that could be a translation issue.
Residents from the Twin Cities to the southwestern corner of Minnesota and into Iowa reported seeing a flaming object shooting through the sky Wednesday, and experts said they may have been watching a meteor.
Shortly after 2 p.m., people across the Twin Cities reported seeing a "metallic" object or "flaming ball" falling from the sky, according to broadcasters and emergency dispatchers who got hundreds of calls from people in Edina, Maple Grove and other suburbs. The callers said they saw the object traveling from the northeast to the southwest.
The blazing orange and yellow fireball that Minnesotans reported seeing flash through Wednesday afternoon's clear blue sky was probably a meteor.
And State Patrol officials are confident that the potential meteor did not transmogrify into a wood pallet that caused a minor disruption to drivers in Rogers. "It fell off a vehicle," patrol spokesman Mark Peterson said of the pallet, which was soon removed from Interstate 94 near Highway 101.