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Loud boom in #YorkRegion around 11pm last night. Heard in #Newmarket #Aurora and #RichmondHill. #meteor? #earthquake? #sonicboom? #santa?But so far, there hasn't been an official explanation.
- Rob Jones™ (@blindedbtflash) December 25, 2013
@NebulousNikki that's what we thought too! Lots of neighbours heard it too. Can't figure out what it was... #Kingston
- Kate Kaminska (@katekaminska1) December 25, 2013
@NebulousNikki @RodSinclair1 same in Durham / Brooklin. Over 20 friends in area reporting it at 7:45, again around 11 and about midnight
- Micheline Robichaud (@SweetMinxy) December 25, 2013
Daytime fireball spotted over Sweden yesterday and another over the UK this morning! This can only mean one thing #omgwearallgoingtodieOne eyewitness Gill Brimfield said: "My husband and I were driving home from Evesham last Wednesday evening and spotted a really big bright light in the sky, which was not a star. It was not moving and by the time we got to Churchdown it was still there.
- Virtual Astronomer (@VirtualAstro) December 19, 2013
Comment: A 'mocked up image', 'expert' claims that bear no resemblance to eyewitness reports, and a warning about meteor fireballs "attacking us in 2014".... what a strange news report.
What we've generally found to date is that the media is reluctant to acknowledge fireball meteor sightings at all, nevermind that their numbers are increasing all the time. But lately, there seems to be some prestidigitation, some sleight of hand, going on with the news around this topic, something which really jumped out at us in the above article.
Here we have a local UK news outlet uncritically accept the explanation provided by 'virtual astronomer' that this 'bright light in the sky' was a 'fireball meteor', despite the eyewitnesses all stating that the object was stationary, and that it reappeared in the same spot in the sky on successive nights... so, obviously, they were not seeing a 'fireball meteor'.
We wonder in what direction the eyewitnesses were facing, because it rather sounds like it could have been the planet Venus. Along with Sirius, Venus appears in the evening skies this time of year, making them seem brighter than usual.
So why then would a regular newspaper
We suspect that what's going on here is a combination of ignorant people seeing stuff and the authorities playing on their ignorance to confuse the issue.