[meteorite-list] Meteor Chunks Crash In South Suburb -illinois

From: John Sinclair <JSinclairJr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:23:52 2004
Message-ID: <002b01c2f4d0$a83648e0$e0d31a42_at_triad.rr.com>

Meteor blazes path to Park Forest

By Joseph Sjostrom and Nancy Ryan
Tribune staff reporters

March 27, 2003, 1:20 PM CST

Chunks of rocks believed to be the remains of a meteor that lit up the
Midwestern sky as it exploded rained down across the southern suburbs early
this morning, damaging homes and other buildings but injuring no one.

The meteor streaked across the sky about midnight before apparently blowing
up with a bright flash and a thundering boom. About 100 fragments ranging in
size from small stones to softball-size chunks were recovered from yards,
driveways, streets and even the insides of houses in Park Forest, Matteson
and Steger.

One piece reportedly struck a Park Forest fire station. Another grayish,
five-pound rock landed in the second-floor bedroom of Noe and Paulette
Garza, of the 400 block of Indiana Avenue in Park Forest.

"I could have gotten hit in the head by that thing," Garza, a 48-year-old
steelworker, said as he surveyed the damage caused when the rock crashed
into his home about 12:30 a.m.

The rock punched a hole through the roof and ceiling, shredded a set of
venetian blinds, ricocheted off a metal window sill, shot about 15 feet
across the bedroom and shattered a floor-to-ceiling mirror before coming to
rest on the floor.

Garza said he was in bed when heard his dog barking and what sounded like
thunder. He got out of bed and was downstairs when the meteor hit.

This morning, he called his boss and told him he wasn't coming into work
today. "I told him what happened, and he said, 'Okay, but don't use that
excuse again.'"

The fall could be a boon for local scientists. Most meteors, also called
"shooting stars," burn up in the atmosphere. The few that survive all the
way to the ground are called meteorites. For one to cause damage is almost
unheard of.

Park Forest police said the National Weather Service was notified, and
officials there confirmed a meteor shower had taken place over the Midwest
and the sky had brightened just before midnight.

Residents of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin reported seeing the flash
of bright blue light as the meteor streaked overhead. Some people expressed
fears the apparition might have something to do with the war in Iraq.

Tia McConathy, a next-door neighbor of the Garzas, said she was standing by
a window of her home and was startled by an intense light, brighter than
lightning and lasting much longer.

"I thought, 'Is it God? Is it an attack? Are we going to die?' The light
freaked me out. It felt really funny, like it went through me," she said.

Several witnesses called the Tribune, including Lauren Ellis, 18, of
southwest suburban Plainfield.

"About five of us were in the car, and we were driving down the street in
Plainfield near our house around midnight, and the sky just lit up. We were
in shock. We pulled over because we thought it was a bomb," Ellis said.

"With all that's going on in Iraq, we were wondering what it was," she said.
"We all heard a sound about two minutes after. It was like a sonic boom."

Chris Zeilenga, 42, of Beecher, said he and his wife Pauline were "watching
Iraqi stuff on TV when a couple minutes after midnight, the entire sky lit
up. It was like daylight, and it lasted maybe two to three seconds. We said,
'What the heck was that?'

"A minute to 2 1/2 minutes later, we heard a trembling sound, like a train,"
Zeilenga said. "The rumbling lasted about a minute, and then we heard pieces
hitting the house. The whole thing was strange. I've never seen anything
like it."

Jim Kaplan, of the Romeoville office of the National Weather Service, told
the Associated Press he was outside checking a rain gauge when he saw a
flash of light in the sky.

"First, it got very bright and the sky lit up,'' Kaplan said. ``You could
see something streaking across the sky and breaking up into glowing chunks
as it went from west to east.''

Lauren Bishop, 19, a freshman at Loyola University on Chicago's North Side,
was in her dorm room in the Rogers Park neighborhood around midnight when
she and her roommate saw the flash of light.

"We were in our dorm facing north when something lit up the entire sky. I
didn't hear any noise," Bishop said. "Then we talked to a friend in Indiana
who saw the same exact thing at the same time."

WGN-Ch. 9 and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
Received on Thu 27 Mar 2003 09:20:35 PM PST