Fire in the SkyS


Meteor

Cosmic turkey shoot: Flint, Michigan isn't the only place with mysterious explosions

Blake Thorne
M Live
Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:22 UTC
Image
© MLive.com File Photo
The cause of the mystery booming noises Flint residents had complained about may be explained by the secret bomb range Flint police recently confirmed.

For months, years even, residents have reported random loud noises, like thunder or fireworks.

Flint isn't the only place where people have reported noises like this. All over the country are reports of strange noises and loud booming sounds. Usually, nobody seems to know where they're coming from.

Let's take a look.

Utah

In January, a television station out of Salt Lake City reported that "hundreds of people from Weber County to Utah County, and some as far north as Rock Springs, Wyoming reported that they felt shaking or heard loud booms." Experts reported seismic activity in the area, but there was no record of any earthquakes.

Massachusetts

Last November, reports out of Salem, Mass., indicated that "police responded to a report of loud explosions in the area of Bridge Street."

Oklahoma

In January, a local Oklahoma City television station reported that residents in the town of Guthrie had been reporting a mysterious noise around town.

Comment: It's not a mystery, really. Elsewhere on the Big Blue Marble there have been almost daily reports of loud booms as well as 'earthquakes' and meteorite explosions. This is just a small sample from the end of last year:

Thousands report loud boom and unusual sounds in Northeastern US: USGS classifies it as earthquake, but was it really an overhead meteor explosion?
Meteor explodes above Devon, England, blast wave blows open police station doors, tremors felt across wide area
Fragmentation and Sonics! Northern California Fireball Meteor +19'42 PDT 17OCT2012 - Unrelated to the Orionids
Slow-moving blue-orange fireball reported over Lincolnshire, England
Meteor with a long gold tail blazes across Alberta, Canada, 15 October 2012
Large bright fireball with orange-green tail breaks apart over Queensland, Australia, 29 August 2012

Something wicked this way comes? Read the following articles to learn more about the immediate cosmic threat:

Reign of Fire: Meteorites, Wildfires, Planetary Chaos and the Sixth Extinction
Meteorite Impacts Earth in Minden, Louisiana - Media and Government Cover It Up
Incoming! Meteor or Comet Fragment Explodes Above Southwestern US, Prompting US Army 'Missiles' Cover-up
Fireball explodes over Russian city: Widespread panic and structural damage, Thousand people injured

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Fireball 4

Spectacular meteor captured on camera in Winnipeg


QMI Agency
Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:06 UTC
Meteor
© Shannon BileskiShannon Bileski caught a meteor on camera while out at Patricia Beach March 29, 2013.
Manitoba, Canada - With her camera set to a shutter speed of eight seconds, a local woman managed to capture a spectacular meteor display.

Shannon Bileski was on the east side of Lake Winnipeg late Friday night with her astronomy club.

"We saw a bright flash with green explosions ... it was a meteor!" she wrote in an e-mail.

"(I) managed to capture the entry and explosions (look closely and you can see them)!" she wrote.

Flashes of green in the sky turn out to be meteors less often than you'd think, Planetarium spokesman Scott Young has previously told QMI Agency. Winnipeggers get treated to this kind of spectacular skyward event about once a year, Young said.

"I think people are excited to see things that are outside their normal experience," Young said. "We get a lot of calls about 'that light in the sky' which turn out to be meteors, planets, the Space Station, etc. but people are still excited because they just 'discovered' them themselves.

"Humans love to discover things."
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Fireball 4

Bright green object seen in Northern Colorado skies

Tom Hacker
ReporterHerald
Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:20 UTC

What is thought to have been a bright meteor, streaking across the predawn Northern Colorado sky Thursday, sparked reports from dozens of early birds who happened to view it.

Loveland resident Shawn Kraft caught it as he drove northward on U.S. 287, between Owl Canyon and Livermore, on his daily commute to Laramie where he works for the city as an information technologist.

"Here's what I could equate it with," Kraft said. "You know those little sparklers that kids waved around before they were illegal? It was like that. Green. Bright green. Really bright green, in a pitch-black sky. It took about a second or a second and a half."

The "fireball log" maintained by the American Meteor Society, an online gathering spot for amateur observers, contained nearly simultaneous reports of the same sighting -- a bright green meteor seen between 5:46 and 5:50 a.m.

The reports came from Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

"It was good-sized," Kraft said. "It's the biggest thing I've ever seen in the sky like that."

A meteor is the name given to the light emitted by a meteoroid, a small rocky object that enters the earth's atmosphere from space, as it burns in the upper atmosphere.

A rare meteorite is a surviving fragment of a meteoroid that impacts the earth's surface. The vast majority of meteoroids vaporize in the atmosphere.
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Question

Florida: Boom shakes windows in several counties


Gainesville Sun
Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:32 UTC
Image
© Alamy
A sonic boom of some sort caused windows and walls to shake over several counties in North Central Florida Thursday night, and Alachua County sheriff's officials got the explanation that it was "military manuevering of some kind."

Alachua County Sheriff's Lt. Art Forgey said late Thursday night that the "west side of Gainesville flooded our communications center" around 9 p.m. with calls about a window-clattering and wall-shaking boom felt by many residents, particularly those in west Gainesville.
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Question

Yellow blob discovered after meteor sighting in China

Rob Schwarz
StrangerDimensions
Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:16 UTC
Yellow Thingy
© Stranger Dimensions
On March 22 in Yongjin, Sichuan, China, Peng Xianyong witnessed a light in the sky. It brightened the landscape as it passed, red and green with a long, streaking tail.

That would have been strange enough, but the next morning, Xianyong discovered four yellow blobs in his front yard, arranged in something that looked like a Chinese character.

He approached one of the blobs and, well, he poked it with a stick. This revealed its peculiar insides, a bloody red and brown. Apparently, it smelled of "fresh plants" and was soft as eggs, but did not "spread" when broken.

It's probably a mold or fungus, but this isn't the first time a strange substance has popped up after a meteor sighting. After the Russian meteorite incident last month, "alien" slime was located at a Somerset nature reserve. And, you know, there's a long history of stuff called Star Jelly, mysterious goo said to arrive during meteor showers.

Source: WCC Daily (In Mandarin)

Comment: Very interesting. Researchers in the UK suspect there was another incidence of 'star jelly' in the UK last month as a result of the meteor Chelyabinsk overhead meteor explosion:Is mysterious green 'slime' found in Somerset wildlife park linked with recent meteor strike?

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Fireball 4

22 Mar 2013 Update For March 22, 2013 Northeast Fireball

Mike Hankey
amsmeteors.org
Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:39 UTC
Here's a heat map of the witness sightings for the March 22nd, 2013 Northeast Fireball.

Here's an estimated trajectory model for the meteor spotted in the northeast earlier tonight. This model is calculated by computing the intersection points of each witness with all other witnesses. These points are then averaged for the starting and ending points of the meteor. Click here for map below to view event sightings page.
Image
Trajectory For March 22, 2013 Fireball Event
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Fireball 4

Video: Green Meteor lights up the East Coast from Virginia to Boston (Mar 22, 2013)


MyFoxdc.com
Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:32 UTC
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Fireball 4

Bright green fireball trails over Florida, 21 March 2013


lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
Sat, 23 Mar 2013 17:27 UTC
Image
© LunarMeteoriteHunter / Google Earth
Initial Sighting Reports

21 March 2013 - Amanda, Miami, FL, USA 22:15 EST
About 2-3 seconds duration. Southeast direction. Blue/green color. Very bright like a firework. It was traveling southeast, continuing in that direction.
21 March 2013 - Kara Rhoden, Starke, FL USA 22:00
5 seconds duration. East to West direction, I was facing North. Bright green fireball with a trail. No sound, it was as bright as the moon. Fragments fell off the tail. Never seen anything like it...very fascinating.
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Fireball 4

Green fireball blazes over Alberta, Canada, 21 March 2013


lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:20 UTC
Initial Meteor Sighting Reports

21 March 2013 - Brittney Rattray, Calgary, Alberta @ 21:31 MST
3 seconds duration. I was Northwest facing. Green colour. Very bright falling star. Bigger than I've ever seen.
21 March 2013 - H.C., Calgary, Alberta 21:20
2 seconds duration. I was facing North. It travelled from top to bottom with a slight decline to the left. Bright whitish green colour, with a fairly bright tail. It was big and quick.
21 March 2013 - Stephany Cartwright, Drayton Valley, Alberta Canada 21:20
6 seconds duration. Northwest direction. Purple/blue/silver colour. As bright as the sun. There was a long tail.
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Fireball 4

Thousands witness enormous multicolored fireball fragment and explode above Northeastern U.S., 22 March 2013 - Celestial event seen from 14 states, Eighth fireball over Northeast in past month


lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:19 UTC
Image
© lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/google earth
Over 350 sighting reports so far... This was a MAJOR meteor event, seen in at least 14 states!

22 March 2013 - Cliff Livesay, Sykesville, Maryland, USA @19:55
4 seconds duration. W-E direction. Bright white color. As bright as the Moon. I caught it from the corner of my eye out the window, watched it streak across and burn out.
22 March 2013 - Mark Nucker, Ellicot City, Maryland, USA @19:57
2-3 seconds duration. Moved from my left to right, north to east direction. Green-blue color, as bright as the moon. It moved quickly while descending.

Comment: Large bright fireball fragments over Northeastern US, 14 March 2013 - second celestial event in region this week

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