Fire in the SkyS


Fireball 2

Meteor fireball seen over Bellingham Bay, Washington

Robert Mittendorf
The Bellingham Herald
Thu, 26 Oct 2017 14:31 UTC
meteor
File image
Firefighters searched Bellingham Bay and the surrounding shoreline Tuesday night after least two Whatcom County residents called 911, reporting they had seen an aircraft engulfed in flames crash into Bellingham Bay.

What people likely saw was a fireball, officials said — but one more properly called a meteor. Several Whatcom County residents saw it, too, but they recognized the blazing streak as a shooting star at 7:38 p.m. Tuesday.

"It was green, very bright, and super fast heading north," said Bridgett Bullard of Blaine. "I saw it while I was getting onto I-5 northbound at Bakerview. My sister saw it and she was on Grandview in Birch Bay."

Others were convinced they had seen an aircraft hit the water. Fire crews and other units were sent to investigate, including the fireboat Salish Star.

"Report of a plane seen going down in the area, Kwina Road and Haxton, in the water," a dispatcher said, according to emergency radio traffic archived online.
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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball lights up the sky in Port Lincoln, South Australia; massive bangs heard

Elizabeth Henson
news.com.au
Fri, 27 Oct 2017 14:18 UTC
The fireball that travelled across the Eyre Peninsula on Thursday night.
© Desert Fireball Network, Curtin UniversityThe fireball that travelled across the Eyre Peninsula on Thursday night.
A meteor research centre has captured an image of a fireball that lit up the sky over the Eyre Peninsula and reportedly caused the ground and buildings to shake at Port Lincoln.

The bright blue meteor shot across the sky just after 11pm and was spotted by people as far away as Adelaide.

Port Lincoln resident Lila Watson was driving home when she saw what she initially thought was a shooting star.

"It just got bigger and bigger and it was just this big flash across the sky and there were sparks coming off it," she told The Advertiser.

"It just lit the sky up and I saw it go southeast.

"I pulled up home and I heard two massive bangs, maybe a second apart, and then the sky lit up again."

"It definitely shook the ground - I just felt the whole earth shake twice."
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Meteor

Mystery booms heard in North Carolina, Michigan and Queensland

Brett Tingley
Mysterious Universe
Wed, 11 Oct 2017 18:56 UTC
meteorite
Mystery booms seem to be occurring with increasing frequency lately, with booms being heard just this week in North Carolina and Michigan. In both cases, authorities have been left baffled by what might be behind these earth-shaking noises which seem to emanate from the sky itself. This unexplained phenomenon is host to a wide variety of explanations including gas escaping vents deep within the Earth, anomalous meteorological events, sonic booms from tests of secret military aircraft, UFOs of course, and meteorites exploding in the atmosphere. While most of these eerie thunderous noises go unexplained, a recent mystery boom in Australia might have a simple, cosmic - and terrifying - explanation.

Death from above.

The boom was heard by residents throughout the Cairns region of Queensland, Australia marking the second time in two months that southern Australia has been rocked by anomalous explosions in the sky. The boom occurred around 10:30 pm on Saturday, October 7th and was reportedly so loud that it shook houses in the area.

Comment: Another boom was heard in North Carolina a week or so after the one reported above: Home-shaking, loud boom heard around Southport, Oak Island, North Carolina

A Cairns resident checked out the Australian boom and sent a video to the Cairns Post of a possible crater; no sign of a meteorite, just an ash-filled hole in the ground.

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Sherlock

South Jersey rattled by mystery booms - officials investigating

Cleve Bryan
CBS
Thu, 26 Oct 2017 13:47 UTC
map sout New Jersey
A loud boom and shaking sensation was reported throughout Southern New Jersey on Wednesday morning that baffled people from the Shore to Burlington County.

"There were calls into the 911 center and we didn't know anything about it at the time, so no action was taken," North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello said.

So what was it?

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center says there was not any seismic activity but detected a possible sonic boom about 9 miles off North Wildwood at 10:18 a.m.

In other words - it was probably a high speed jet.

Comment: "Mystery booms' appear to be occurring with increasing frequency around the world. Not all of them can be chalked up to military training. A very small sample from the SOTT archives. The one possible explanation that is not being put forward is the overhead explosions could be caused by micrometeorites exploding in the atmosphere without being detected first. Fireball counts have been rising exponentially in the last decade. Here is SOTT events mapping service for just the last year. (Click play button to see stats.)



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Fireball 2

Meteorite slams into businessman's roof in Paarl, South Africa

Marvin Charles
IOL
Wed, 25 Oct 2017 09:26 UTC
There is apparently a one in four billion chance of a meteorite hitting a building, but it happened to business owner Fagrie Allie
© Henk KrugerThere is apparently a one in four billion chance of a meteorite hitting a building, but it happened to business owner Fagrie Allie
He heard a loud thump and thought it was an intruder trying to steal from his furniture shop. Never in his wildest dreams did he think the "intruder" was from a galaxy far away.

Fagrie Allie, who owns a furniture store in Paarl, was closing his shop when "I heard a loud thump along with a shattering sound and at first I thought It was an intruder but I saw the store was empty and I thought maybe one of the pieces of furniture had fallen over but I saw nothing".

He then saw dust particles coming from the ceiling but didn't take note at first.

"It bothered me because it was a really loud bang. I got into the ceiling and when I looked up at the roof sheets I saw a hole in the roof sheet itself. I came back down and found small pieces of rock lying on the floor," Allie said.
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Fireball 4

Unidentified object, possibly a meteorite, crashes down near St. John's, Canada

Ryan Cooke
CBC News Canada
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 21:46 UTC
Meteorite
© CBC News CanadaA security camera on the waterfront in St. John's captured this shot of a light falling from the sky near the South Side Hills, across the harbour.
Andrew Wilkins was eating dinner at a downtown St. John's pub, looking out over the city's iconic harbour, when a flash of green light caught his attention.

"The whole sky just lit up," he said. "It was coming in on a 45 degree angle, coming down to the right."

Wilkins stopped eating and stared as the moving ball of light crashed down on the opposite side of the harbour, towards the largely uninhabited Southside Hills area.

He paused to determine if he could hear a crash, but the noisy chatter of the busy pub prevented him from hearing any sound the flash of light may have made.

"It was like a big green ball of fire, is what it looked like. At first I thought, 'Wow, geez, that's a really bright firework,' but fireworks don't shoot downwards."
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Fireball 4

Bright meteor fireball explodes over southeastern Poland


Sott.net
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 20:02 UTC
meteor fireball over Poland
A bright meteor fireball exploded over southeastern Poland on 16th October just before midnight. The phenomenon was captured by stations of the Polish Fireball Network (PFN) reported wmeritum.pl.

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Fireball

The mystery boom that shook northeast British Columbia was probably a fireball says astronomer


CBC News
Fri, 20 Oct 2017 07:00 UTC
Meteor from Perseid shower
© Ognen Teofilovski/ReutersA meteor streaks across the sky during the Perseid meteor shower at a windmill farm near Bogdanci, south of Skopje, in the early morning August 13, 2014. Astronomer Ken Tapping said it's rare to have advance warnings of meteors entering specific regions.
The source of a loud bang followed by shaking in northeast B.C., that caused confusion for residents, was likely a meteor shooting through the sky, says a B.C. astronomer.

"It's entirely consistent with it being a large fireball," said Ken Tapping, a National Research Council of Canada astronomer.

Residents who experienced the event said it sounded like the object was just outside their homes.

"It was like when a shotgun goes off and you're right beside it," said Donna Taylor of Charlie Lake, a small community northwest of Fort St. John, who was in her home when she heard the noise around 11 pm Wednesday night.

"I thought somebody threw something against my place or ran into it, because all the windows shook."

Jessica Krupp was in bed when the noise woke her up. "It sounded like a fuse blew or something electrical kind of snapped or crackled," she said. "Like an explosion almost.I thought a truck blew up or something."
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Fireball 2

Daytime meteor fireball seen over Connecticut and adjacent states

Jim Shay
Connecticut Post
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 16:32 UTC
sightings
© American Meteor Society Map
A bright daytime fireball was seen over the skies of Connecticut on Wednesday afternoon.

The American Meteor Society says the likely path of the meteor was southeast of Long Island over the Atlantic Ocean.

"The AMS has received over 130 reports so far about of a daytime fireball event seen above New York State on October 18, 2017 around 3 p.m.," it said.

"The fireball was seen primarily from New York and New Jersey, but was also seen from Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland and New Hampshire."

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Fireball

Meteor explosion brightens southern Sri Lanka's skies

Chaturanga Pradeep
Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 05:14 UTC
Meteor
© Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka
Colombo University Physical Science Department Prof. Chandana Jayaratne confirmed that the bright light and sound which was heard from the Southern Province (SP) this evening was because of an explosion caused by a meteor.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror he said the explosion was known as a 'fireball explosion' and occurs after an asteroid enters the earth's atmosphere.

"The asteroid could be a size of 50 centimetres. Every asteroid enters the earth's photosphere at a speed of 65 kilometers per second. With that speed one side of the asteroid gets heated up due to friction and the other side does not, therefore causing an explosion," Prof Jayaratne said.
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