[meteorite-list] Asteroid?

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:53:37 2004
Message-ID: <200212241933.LAA02376_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

>
> "It was probably a shadow of a plane, and since it had just passed in
> front of the Sun, it would be very hard to see from the ground due to
> the Sun's overbearing glare."
>
> Well, I guess I need to clarify a few things! With all do respect Ron, I am
> not an idiot! It was not a plane! The glare from the sun would make a plane
> hard to see. But a plane can not hide in the glare for ever.

Did you evef observe a plane in the sky, not overhead, but off at an angle?
Notice how slowly it moves.
Since you gave a time of 3 to 4 PM, the Sun is not directly overhead, and
the plane could be some distance off, making its slow trek across the sky,
and I think you just was lucky enough to be under the shadow it cast.

>The shadow
> covered an area of at least a few big blocks, that would have been one big
> plane! It lasted second or less. Like I said it seemed like a large dark
> cloud covered the entire area, but there was not a cloud in the sky! I know
> it was not just me because a few other people looked up at the same time to
> see what caused it.

The last time
I took a plane trip, I was looking out the window and was able to observe
the plane's shadow on the ground down below. The shadow was moving very
quickly across the ground. I wondered what an observer on the ground
would perceive if that shadow passed over him. In fact, I often wonder this
on every plane trip whenever I do see the plane's shadow on the ground.
To the ground observer, The area around him
would go dark for a brief period. Obviously, people in the same vicinity would notice the same thing, that would not be unexpected.
The observer would initially
think it was a cloud and may look up, and if they are no clouds, then
would be puzzled and look around some more. The sun's glare
could keep the plane out of view for several seconds, but long enough
that the observer on the ground would have stopped looking around, and
not sighted the plane.
If the plane was close encough, the observer would hear the plane engines
and know right away it was a plane, even if he never did see the plane. If
the plane was some distance away, he wouldn't hear the plane engines, and that
would just add to the mystery.

WHen you made your post, the first thing I thought was it had to be
a plane. It is very plausible, and your observations match very with
a plane shadow.

Ron Baalke
Received on Tue 24 Dec 2002 02:33:32 PM PST