Whatever their theory, Picton residents have been noticing strange lights in the sky in recent weeks, with people reporting spectacular, multicoloured lights dancing above the horizon to the west.
The phenomenon has a scientific explanation that's a little more mundane, said David Turner, a local member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"It's the planet Venus," he said.
The fireball that passed over Edmonton Friday night may have left more behind than experts originally thought.
"There's a good chance meteorites might have fallen," the University of Calgary's Dr. Alan Hildebrand told Sun Media.
Witnesses in Edmonton reported red fragments continuing toward the earth after the intense light of the meteor subsided.
A mundane act became extraordinary event for Evelyn Bolton yesterday.
Around 1 a.m., Bolton and her daughter were taking the garbage out at their northside home when they saw an intense light appear and then disappear in the night sky.
"Our eyes hurt from the light," she told Sun Media, describing the one-minute blinding flash.
Though she found the event "freaky," Bolton didn't believe she witnessed a UFO.
But what she did see - a large glowing meteor - was rare, says University of Calgary geology professor Alan Hildebrand, co-ordinator of the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre.
Comment: "rare"?? "once in a lifetime"?? What planet is the Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science actually living on? Someone needs to send him a link to the Signs page so he can peruse the awesome number of fireballs and meteorites that have been peppering the skies of planet earth over the past few years.
APMon, 14 May 2007 08:06 UTC
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho A meteor lit up the night sky across eastern Idaho yesterday evening.
KELOWNA -- Startled stargazers were treated to a rare and beautiful sight this week when a brilliant meteor streaked through Okanagan skies.
"It was an amazing, vibrant sight, a fireball with a white centre, blue halo and a long pink tail," said Connie Denesiuk, who, with her husband, Bob, happened to see the meteor from the deck of their Summerland home.
The unusually large shooting star was visible for just a few seconds around 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday.
The mysterious metallic object that crashed through the roof of a central New Jersey family's home earlier this year was not a meteorite after all, geologists said Friday.
While the rocklike object looks like a meteorite, scientists say it is a stainless steel alloy that does not occur in nature and is most likely "orbital debris'' - or plain terms, scrap iron.
It's still a mystery where the object came from.
"That's the $64,000 question, and there's probably no way to answer it,'' said Rutgers University geologist Jeremy Delaney. "A piece of scrap iron dropped out of the sky. The question is how did it get into the sky in the first place? That one I simply cannot answer.''
Srinivasan Nageswaran, whose family discovered the silver object after it crashed through the roof and into the upstairs bathroom of his home in Freehold Township, was disappointed by the news.
The 112 Emergency switchboard collapsed due to the number of phone calls received.
Phenomenon "very likely to have caused meteorites", according to one researcher.
Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Toledo and Valladolid are some of the provinces of the center of the Spanish peninsula that witnessed the transit of an "impressive" fireball, according to Josep M. Trigo of the Red de Investigacion sobre Bolidos y Meteoritos. The 112 Emergency switchboard collapsed by phone calls from spectators only a few minutes later.
Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Or was it, goodness gracious, great balls of fire?
To be honest, no one is entirely sure, but police were inundated with calls from Warana and Kawana residents who heard "some sort of explosion" just before 10.30pm on Wednesday.
Some reported seeing a bright flash in the sky at the time of the bang, with others claiming their house shook from the noise.
Kawana's Island Keys resident manager Chris Hobart and her husband Bob likened the noise to an explosion.
"We were working inside and heard it, and being a manager of a complex, we thought the gas bottles had exploded or something," she said.
Experts of the "Kosmopoisk" all-Russia scientific research association are now checking the recent reports on a bolide, which had allegedly dropped to the earth in Altai Territory on Monday, Vadim Chernobrov, leader of the expedition, which is now searching for the meteorite that struck the earth there in January, told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
He said local people had notified the expedition members that a new celestial object had hit the earth on Wednesday evening.
"They said a bright celestial body flew from west to east over Klyuchevsky and Rodinsky districts at 22.23 local time (19.23 Moscow time). It is difficult to say whether the object struck the earth or not," Chernobrov said.
However, local people claim that they saw how the "celestial guest" had descended and dropped east of Rodinsky District, setting the forest on fire.
A group of Russian researchers looking for a meteorite that fell in January in the Altai Territory in southern Siberia has found an extraterrestrial substance which could be meteorite fragments, a coordinator said Monday. "We have collected about 50 samples, and vitreous threads (traces of comet substance) were discovered in the first of them using a microscope," Vadim Chernobrov of Kosmopoisk (space search) said.
"We will reach the meteorite site in a few days, but rocks which are probably meteorite fragments have already been found," Chernobrov said.
Comment: "rare"?? "once in a lifetime"?? What planet is the Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science actually living on? Someone needs to send him a link to the Signs page so he can peruse the awesome number of fireballs and meteorites that have been peppering the skies of planet earth over the past few years.