Hundreds Spot Fireballs In Colorado, Nearby States 509
pingpong writes "Hundreds of people in Colorado and 7 surrounding states have reported seeing "fireballs" in the night sky. They are described as being 10 to 15 times larger than a normal shooting star and bluish in color. Two people even claimed to see one land, but it has yet to be found. The Daily Camera is reporting it online here."
Field reports invited.
Witness (Score:5, Interesting)
I had the time to: understand (maybe) what it was, wake up my wife, stop the car, get out an look. Total time maybe 20 seconds. The 'object' was moving slowly, spewing green flames and eaving a long lasting orange trail behind. Trajectory was more or less horizontal. It disapeared in a flash. I tried to listen but there wasn't any noise besides the cooling car engine.
Maybe it's a new meteor shower! (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, so why can't we be in a meteor storm? They find new comets and asteroids all the time, why can't there have been one that passed through the orbit of the earth that we missed? Anyway, I think it's probably just a satellite that was in geosync orbit over that area that came apart over a few days. That would explain why the fireballs have been fairly localized, and the unusual colors come from the variety of unique metals in most space objects we build. I imagine based ont he color descriptions of the flames they'd be able to at least take an educated guess on what compounds were combusing. Let's all just hope that whatever came down didn't bring any radioactive material with it.
I saw a bunch one night, 40 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
As the drive continued, we saw about 6 more fireballs, all red, all running east to west, through the rest of the evening.
Quite a show. The clear and thin high altitude air of the rockies, along with the lack of city lights, makes these sitings a lot more common in those areas.
We didn't see any LGM, however.
Planet X (Score:3, Interesting)
There are many people that believe in the year 2003, another planet is going to enter our solar system from either outside the solar system or another dimension. It's known either as Planet X, or a name that starts with N, which escapes me at the moment... I do find it an interesting coincidence that a story was just posted about the discovery of a new planet, and now to hear of these bizarre fireballs. I'm sure they're having a field day with this on the Art Bell show tonight. I'm a skeptic on all things "extraterrestrial" and paranormal, but it's still really interesting to listen to. :)
Re:It's all so damn 'Merican (Score:3, Interesting)
True true, but as a previous resident of Colorado I can tell you that these names are at least 120 years old. They were so-named during the frontier era when the only thing that kept you alive was your gun. Mountain men relied on thier weapon for food and for protection. That's just the way it was in the West during the 1800s, and that's why they named stuff the way they did.
It just makes a canajen boy shake his head and celebrate the difference.
Maybe you should study your countries' history a bit more.
Nibiru (Score:5, Interesting)
is the planet's name, for anyone who wants to do a Google search or look on Art's site about it. I should also mention that they expect highly evolved alien races to accompany this giant planet/spaceship. :)
The only difference... (Score:2, Interesting)
These big, slow green fireballs happen from time to time. The only difference this time is that there were two different consecutive fireballs in two days. Its probably two chunks of the same rock...
Just like shoemaker-levy did when it smashed an earth sized crater in Jupiter. No worries.
Re:Could it be? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's an interesting thing to try--
Stick a couple of old forks in a pickle with the handles pointing away from each other. Split a power cord down the middle and attach some alligator clips to the cut off part. Attach the clips to the forks and put the plug in the wall. After a few seconds, you'll see the pickel glow yellow between where the forks are stuck in the pickle. It's pretty neat to watch.
triffid references??? (Score:2, Interesting)
what's wrong with you people!
maybe there's just nothing funny about plants that eat people...
This seems to be some cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, if I don't miss things it looks like that there is one more account about a similar phenomena out of the USA. Unfortunately I don't remember the place.
So, it seems that we are inside some fresh new cloud of cosmical debris. The events we see are probably the result of Earth crossing the trajectory of Kuiper belt newcomer. Usually, when this happens, we get some spectacular phenomena on the skies, usually presented as meteorite showers. However this fireball show is surely less usual to see. The fact that this lasts for a few days is probably the result that the newcomer crumbled to pieces while approaching the Sun.
Re:Meteor Showers (Score:2, Interesting)
Being in Colorado, if on the chance it was our government playing with a new toy, I wouldn't be surprised. IIRC, Nevada, offshore California and the Rocky Mountains and parts of Colorado are prime testing areas.
There are some pretty crazy ideas out there for propulsion, however I know of none that would create anything this big in such a shape (tail only 2-3x longer than width one person stated in the Denver Post article). This also doesn't explain descriptions of "chunks falling off" of the fireball.
I have yet to see "Signs." I suppose in this case that's a good thing. =)
Re:Slashdot Readers Report Rise In One-Liners (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh gawd, i can't wait 'till the onion gets a field day out of those stories.
Different directions? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the article is correct, one or both of the fireballs must have been something else, such as a sattelite reentering the atmosphere, despite all the quotes from experts saying that they were meteorites...
I actually think I saw one of these (Score:3, Interesting)
It wasn't one of the most recent fireballs, but the one on September 6th [cloudbait.com].
It was probably around 8 at night and I was walking back to my dorm room (Univ of Colorado at Colorado Springs [uccs.edu]) from work. I was almost back to the campus when I saw a bright but small fireball in the northeast sky. Mostly white with a bluish tinge it moved pretty slowly (for a metor/shooting star) across the sky, parallel to the ground, and leaving behind little particles that glowed briefly before fading away. After about 30 seconds, the fireball itself faded away.
Since there was a plane in the sky near where I saw it first, I thought it was a firework or something shot from the plane. Maybe the military testing something (who doesn't like a good mystery?). For some reason, a metor never occured to me.
I've always wanted to see one of these, cool.
Astronomy courses, and other WEB PAGES (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Planet X (Score:4, Interesting)
The evidence for this is the periodic drops in biodiversity (i.e. mass extinctions) that seem to occur every 26 million years (according to some paleontolists). However, we are between extinctions, and should be relatively trouble free for more than 10 million years.
From other posts in the vicinity it looks like Nemesis wasn't what you were talking about, but I guess it's in the same category. Personally, I think we would know if there was another star--even a small dark one--that close to us.
(Source: Michio Kaku, _Hyperspace_, pp. 296-298. Recommended for people like me who can't get past first-year university but like scientific things anyhow.)
Re:Nibiru (Score:2, Interesting)
Nibiru is the Sumerian term for this planet, which is estimated to have a 3,600 earth year cycle.
The Sumerians had a complete record of all of the known planets (including the recently discovered ones such as Uranus, Neptune and Pluto), they knew that Uranus and Neptune were watery planets and had been knocked on their side among other facts we are now rediscovering, and they even had a layout of our solar system before its current order when the earth was positioned where the current asteroid belt is located and pluto was a moon of saturn.
If this planetary body is indeed quickly shooting through our solar system again (some feel that it is really a red dwarf sun with satelites).
The last time it would have approached would have been around the time of the biblical exodus. During that time there were peculiar weather patterns and ecological imbalances that led to a plague of locusts, which in turn probably created the plague of frogs, etc. The parting of the red sea would make sense in terms of a tsunami. They were told to go to the edge of the Red Sea, as it receded they quickly crossed it and headed to the next mountain range. By the time the Egyptians came chasing after them, they got hit by the full force of the Tsunami.
Approx 3,600 years before the exodus would have been the time of the great flood (which has been recorded in multiple places around the globe and is not just limited to the middle east.)
The key to both of the above stories is that there was little warning before these huge events. The few voices of warnings were largely ignored or ridiculed.
One other curious fact. The symbol of this planet was similar to the winged globe common in Egypt. Check out this NASA SOHO picture of the sun in September
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/re
or
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q43E216D1
I thought this was a fraud until I downloaded it from NASA's site. You will find this type image throughout the region, not just in Egypt.
Re:Better story (Score:4, Interesting)
The weird thing is, I work with a guy that takes the bus every morning. He waits for the bus pretty early when the sun is just about to rise. He told me all about some super beautiful fireball he saw streaking across the sky about 2 weeks ago. I calmly explained that it was just a meteor but he kept insisting that it was different, he'd never seen one like this before. He went on and on about it, how it was a bright blue streak, etc. At the time, I wrote it off, but now it seems to be a phenomenon.
Guess there was relevance in his story after all. He'll love to hear about this story
Re:Witness (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's where the craziness comes in. The more we looked at the sky, the more people started to see more satellites. In all there were probably 8 we could watch moving, all in vector paths from the horizon to some point in the sky. That point ended up being nearly directly overhead from us.
Once the dark stars reached a central point, they formed a slowly rotating circle. None of us could believe what we were seeing and we were all scared shitless. None of us could look away either because it was so unreal.
After less than ten minutes, we saw clouds blowing in hard from the south. The wind probably hit 20mph in a matter of minutes and we decided it was probably a good idea to leave. The dark stars were still circling overhead when the clouds fully obscured our view of the sky.
We drove fast and hard all the way home and nobody said much of anything. We beat the storm home and it was fairly clear outside except for the clouds coming up from the south where we had been. I don't know if anyone else besides myself has told the story but I don't blame them if they haven't. It sounds like bullshit to anyone who hears it, and it still freaks me out to this day.
Re:Say what? [funny] (Score:3, Interesting)
They are just larger meteors.. I have seen about 6 in my lifetime like this... but then I spend lots of time looking at the sky at night (3-4 nights a week in the hottub for 30-45 minutes staring at the open night sky)
the interesting thing is their approach direction is wrong.. for the time of the night it should have been from the west and more vertical as the planet was travelling in the direction at that time.. this one reentered as if it had been orbiting the planet from an odd direction (from the north) and was very flat(travelled across the sky with no visible angle toward the ground)
I highly doubt that these are special at all.. Meteorites happen... get over it people.
Is Wisconsin considered nearby? (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps these things are happening over a larger range than previously thought?
Re:Maybe it's a new meteor shower! (Score:4, Interesting)
We can't because we aren't. A meteor storm is explicitly defined [thursdaysclassroom.com] as a period during which at least 1000 meteors per hour are observed. These events are extremely rare. The Leonids just barely exceeded that in 2001 [space.com], and in 1966 they topped 100,000 per hour over the US. Here's a decent history of the Leonids [leonids.org].
Meteor showers are common, occurring 10-14 times per year. Meteor storms are quite uncommon, occurring maybe three or four times per century.
Re:Nibiru (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a pity you didn't see any when you were in Egypt. You appear to have missed out on a significant core element of Egyptian iconography.
Re:Better story (Score:2, Interesting)
Then while I was watching Discovery one night about a year ago I heard an astronomer talk about exactly what I saw: A fireball that burst into a shower of sparks with an audible explosion. It's called a bolide.
Google Search on Metor & Bolide [google.com]
xrefer bolide entry [xrefer.com]