Fireballs
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Fireball

'Meteorite ball of fire' spotted in night skies of Horsham, UK

Sarah Page
West Sussex County Times
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 15:27 UTC
Fireball - stock image
Stock image
A breathtaking 'supermoon' visible in the Sussex sky last week led to another astral discovery for a Horsham woman.

Maggie Dellard went out into the garden of her home in Pines Ridge to look at the moon after seeing reports of the phenomenon on television - and was shocked to discover another startling spectacle. "I looked up and there was this big meteorite flying over Tanbridge School," she said. "It was a big ball of fire with a tail behind it.

"I called out to my husband Keith to come and look, but it totally vanished by the time he came out."

Maggie, 73, said: "I just can't believe I am the only person in Horsham to have seen it. It couldn't have been anything else but a meteorite.
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Fireball 2

Meteor fireball reported over western skies in the US

Ric Wayman
St. George News
Wed, 07 Feb 2018 14:21 UTC
A fireball was observed over a wide part of the western United States Tuesday night, Springdale, Utah, Feb. 6, 2018
© Heath SernaA fireball was observed over a wide part of the western United States Tuesday night, Springdale, Utah, Feb. 6, 2018
A fireball seen Tuesday night over skies in the western United States attracted quite a bit of attention.

A fireball was observed over a wide part of the western United States Tuesday night, Springdale, Utah, Feb. 6,

The American Meteor Society reported on their website that the fireball, which occurred at approximately 7:33 p.m. MST, was seen by viewers in a wide swath over the West. Reports flooded in from California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas and one report from St. George.

The meteor was very noticeable in most areas. An observer in Emeryville, California, sent his description of the sighting to the American Meteor Society website.
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Fireball 4

Oklahoma City resident captures meteor fireball on dash cam


News9
Mon, 05 Feb 2018 12:13 UTC
Fireball over OK
© news9.com
An Oklahoma City resident captured video of a meteor streaking across the sky, early Monday morning.

Jared Catalano sent in the video he recorded on his dashboard camera to News 9. Catalano said he was traveling south on N. Portland Avenue, near NW 150th Street, when the meteor appeared, just before 7 a.m.

You can watch News9's coverage here.


Comment: A mysterious house-shaking boom was reported by residents in central Oklahoma (including Oklahoma City) on February 5th:

'It was loud!' Mysterious boom, shock wave rattles homes in central Oklahoma

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House

'It was loud!' Mysterious boom, shock wave rattles homes in central Oklahoma

Ian Smith
KFOR
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 18:26 UTC
Mystery boom in central Oklahoma
© KFOR
Some people in the S.E. metro reported a large "boom" along with a shock wave Monday evening.

"Well, inside the house it sounded like maybe an M80 going off or dynamite. It was loud," said John Smith. "Vibrations. Big boom. First the big boom and then vibrations."

His neighbor, Donna Hood, was also shaken up.

"We thought we'd had an earthquake and we waited and looked on the news and everywhere else and nobody posted anything. So, we had no idea what it was," said Hood.

Data didn't show any earthquakes in the area and authorities say there were no explosions either.
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Fireball

NASA - 2 new 'potentially hazardous' asteroids careening towards Earth

Chris Mahon
Outer Places
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 10:17 UTC
Asteroids
© YouTube/NASA
Two previously unknown "potentially hazardous" asteroids will pass close to Earth this week, and once again we're reminded that a) NASA's ability to spot potentially cataclysmic near-Earth asteroids is currently limited to a few days' warning, and b) the area around Earth is swarming with dozens of giant space rocks, which are apparently stealthy enough to remain undetected until it's too late. Not an encouraging combination, especially after the two near-misses last month (YD7 and 2018 AJ).


Comment: It is a sobering thought but There is NO WAY TO TELL what might hit, and when. The world's observatories were focused on 2012 DA14 when, 6 hours before its scheduled fly-by, another large rock - from another direction - arrived out of nowhere to explode over Chelyabinsk, Russia!


The new asteroids are named 2018 CC and 2018 CB, and are between 9 and 38 meters in size. For comparison, a standard X-Wing is about 12.5 meters long, while the Space Shuttle is about 56 meters.

NASA deems any asteroid that comes within closer than 4.6 million miles of Earth to be "potentially hazardous." This might not sound close in terrestrial terminology but in terms of space distance, it's close enough to worry.

Comment: The skies have been noticeably active recently with an alarming number of space rocks:

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Fireball 3

Did a satellite just crash to Earth? Day after spectacular fireball over Peru, three large metal spheres found (VIDEOS)

Rory McKeown
Daily Star
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 20:16 UTC
peru metal spheres
© AFPThe mysterious spheres were found by peasants in southeastern Peru
Experts are baffled after large steel balls appeared to fall from the sky, terrifying thousands living in nearby neighbourhoods.

Reports have emerged that the mysterious object disintegrated above eastern Brazil and northern Peru.

The bizarre incident was accompanied with loud booms.


Comment: The booms probably wouldn't have been caused by the spheres per se, but whatever craft or larger object carried them through the atmosphere before disintegrating/exploding - assuming that they are indeed man-made and part of a satellite.


People living in Larancahuani, in the region of Puno, Peru, were reportedly left terrified when three metallic spheres crashed down.

The unexplained incident unfolded on January 27.

Video footage from the day appears to show a fireball hurtling through the sky.


Comment: Here's video footage of the mystery fireball:



It does indeed appear to have been a rocket reentry, according to an ID made by watchers.news:
The rocket was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on December 26, 2017, carrying AngoSat 1 Communications Satellite.

The SL-23 rocked body (international designation 2017-086D) re-entered Earth's atmosphere at 23:32 UTC on January 27, 2018, providing a rare opportunity to witness a rocket body slowly burning out in the atmosphere.
In 2016, three very similar objects landed all at once in Vietnam - loud booms were also reported in that case. In 2015, about 6 such objects fell to the ground in Spain. And in 2011, another metal sphere fell in Namibia.

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Question

Widespread booms perplex residents of Fox Valley, Wisconsin

Duke Behnke
Post Crescent.
Sat, 03 Feb 2018 14:03 UTC
boom boom
QUESTION: What was the source of the loud booms in Neenah and Menasha last week?

ANSWER: Your question is one that has perplexed residents and authorities alike.

Starting at about 8:45 p.m. Jan. 26, residents began posting to Facebook about hearing loud noises or booms in Neenah. Some also reported seeing flashes in the air.

The initial reports came from the neighborhoods around Neenah's Recreation and Doty parks. Soon, though, people said they heard the booms in other parts of Neenah and in Menasha, Fox Crossing, Grand Chute, Greenville, Hortonville and on the south, east, north and west sides of Appleton.

It didn't stop there.
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Fireball

Fireball spotted over Peru (VIDEO)

Justin Joffe
Outer Places
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 13:15 UTC
Fireball
© YouTube
Here at Outer Places, we pride ourselves in being both believers and skeptics in equal proportion.

When Peruvian residents saw a giant fireball careening through the sky before crashing in southeastern Peru earlier this week, they were understandably shaken. And though the Peruvian air force has since explained the event as the remains of a satellite, they were understandably skeptical.

What makes this more than your standard, cut and dry gap between civilian and government knowledge? The fact that we've seen personal footage of the fireball, too. A gentleman sent us in a video of the fireball, captured on his cell phone, that shows the object moving in inexplicable ways, far different than any falling object moves as it plummets to the ground. It's easy to understand why some are already racing to claim this is genuine evidence of an alien spacecraft.


Comment: We've seen a few video angles of this event. There wasn't anything unusual about its trajectory or rate of falling.


Meteorologist Alejandro Fonesca, from the Universidade Federal do Acre, confirmed that there were no meteorites scheduled to fall in the area, and thinks that the fireball was either an old satellite or other human-made space litter.


Comment: Meteorites are never 'scheduled' to fall. Meteor showers happen like clockwork, though there's variability with those too. Meteorites are the result of large meteors exploding/disintegrating in the upper atmosphere, and they're not usually part of the 'scheduled' showers.

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Fireball

Mysterious satellite plummets to Earth in fireball near Bolivian border (PHOTOS)


RT
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 16:31 UTC
Satellite
© Peruvian Air Force / AFP
A mysterious fireball spotted over Peru on Saturday turned out to be part of an old satellite falling to Earth.

The Peruvian Air Force was quick to reveal the source of the flames after the round object was found by locals near Larancahuani in the Puno region near the Bolivian border, La Nacion reports.

Locals alerted the Peruvian Air Force (FAP), which then released images of the debris to stop any theories about UFOs gaining traction. "According to the first analysis, it would be a fuel tank of a disused satellite," Commander Pedro Palza of the FAP's Center told AFP, La Nacion reports.
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Meteor

Mysterious boom heard in central Michigan attributed to tannerite

Lisa Yanick Litweller
Morning News Sun
Sun, 28 Jan 2018 01:12 UTC
Mystery boom
© The Scottish Sun
Sometime after 6 p.m. Saturday, dozens of mid-Michigan residents took to social media to ask the question: Did anyone else hear that?

A loud blast heard or felt from south of Shepherd to north of Clare and from Rosebush to Coleman was most likely caused by an exploding firearms target, Isabella County Sheriff Michael Main said.

Central dispatch took one report of a loud boom from the 4000 block of East Coleman Road just before 6:30 p.m. and while a check of the area yielded no definitive results, Main said it was most likely a Tannerite target.

"We get that type of complaint from time to time, it sounds like an explosion or Dynamite," Main said.

Tannerite is the brand name of a type of shooting target that explodes when hit by an object traveling at a high velocity, like a bullet.
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