Fire in the SkyS


Question

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Question

Explosion like boom blamed on fighter jet test in Ohio

People in a part of northwest Ohio now know why their windows shook Thursday morning from what they thought was an explosion.

Turns out it was a sonic boom.

Comment: This article quotes an Air Force officer, "planes aren't allowed to fly fast enough to create a sonic boom over U.S. land, except over some remote areas."


Question

Sonic booms along South Carolina?

What sounded like sonic booms in the North Myrtle Beach area Wednesday night were probably made by fighter jets from Shaw Air Force Base conducting routine training exercises, an official said.

Shaw F-16 pilots are conducting night training this week and were flying off the coast of the Grand Strand between 10:30 p.m. and 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, said Judy Lewis with the public affairs division of Shaw Air Force Base.

Comment: A family saw and recorded strange lights at North Myrtle Beach that night, but no mention of booms in their story.


Telescope

Another Fireball Shoots Across Southwestern Skies; Unpredicted Meteor Shower Underway

ANOTHER FIREBALL: "After seeing the September 13th New Mexico fireball on spaceweather.com, I was surprised to catch a very bright fireball here in Texas just two nights later," reports Tom King who operates an all-night, all-sky camera near Watauga, Texas, not far from Dallas/Fort Worth. "In the video, you can see where the meteor is bright enough to illuminate a power poleand trees!"

©Watauga Skies Observatory

Star

New Mexico Fireball

On Sept 13th at approximately 3 o'clock in the morning MDT, an extremely bright fireball streaked over New Mexico, "It was terrifying," says eyewitness Susan K. Burgess. "I was stargazing outside my house near Santa Fe when the landscape started becoming very bright, as if a brilliant full moon was quickly rising from the southwest. The fireball itself [slowly moved] over the house and disintegrated with a great deal of scatter in the northwest sky."

At the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, a Sentinel all-sky video camera captured the fireball in flight.

Question

Meteorite shower sparks sea alarm in UK

A meteorite shower is suspected to have caused a spate of emergency calls off the coast of north-east England.

Coastguards were alerted to what appeared to be red flares being fired into the sky off Saltscar Buoy, near Redcar, Teesside, on Wednesday night.

A lifeboat was launched but the search was called off after a large number of similar calls came in along the coast, spanning from Tyneside to Humberside.

©MCA

Meteor

US: Fiery Ball Reported Exploding Off New Jersey

Head for the hills! A mysterious giant "fireball" was spotted exploding over the ocean off the Jersey Shore last night, but officials had no idea last night what it was.

The unidentified falling object was first seen at about 8:40 p.m. by people on Normandy Beach in Ocean County, and was also spotted as far away as Fire Island and South Carolina, officials said.

"It was dispatched as a fireball, out over the ocean, going into the ocean," Deputy Chief Tim Cook of the Toms River, N.J., Fire Department told The Post.

At least 15 witnesses on the beach all described the same thing, he said.

Question

Mystery Surrounds Ear-Splitting Booms in Washington DC

A series of explosions in Northeast have some residents looking for answers, and some law enforcement sources have an idea of what could be to blame.

Debris from used fireworks litters the neighborhood's streets, but residents do not think that is the source of the ear-splitting noise on Friday and Saturday nights along Isherwood street.

"Boom! It was loud; it just sound like something was coming down," said Northeast resident Brittany Slaughter.

Residents say it sounded like a plane crash or an earthquake.

Attention

Boom over Ireland! RAF rejects sonic jet claims

The mystery of what caused a sonic boom-like noise over Co Down has deepened after the RAF denied reports a supersonic fighter jet was in Ulster skies at the time.

Residents in north Down were alarmed when they heard what they thought was an earthquake on Tuesday afternoon.

Star

Flashback Super Bolide: "A major daylight fireball tore across the skies of Slovenia, Croatia and Italy"

On Wednesday, July 25th at approximately 10:00 UT, "a major daylight fireball tore across the skies of Slovenia, Croatia and Italy," reports veteran meteor observer Jure Atanackov of Maribor, Slovenia. "It produced two bright flashes that reached an estimated magnitude of -20 and also loud sonic booms."