[meteorite-list] Fire In The Skies Over Arkansas

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:27:44 2004
Message-ID: <200311050044.QAA13331_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.kait8.com/Global/story.asp?S=1511144

Fire In The Skies Over Region 8
kait8.com (Jonesboro, Arkansas)
November 4, 2003

JONESBORO, AR - Many Region 8 residents are still wondering what
caused Monday night's terrific light show in the sky and the explosion
that followed.

The K8 Newsroom was flooded with literally hundreds of calls that
began pouring in around 9:45 p.m. with questions and reports of
seeing brilliant flashes of blue and yellow light in the skies.
The Jonesboro 911 dispatch office was flooded with similar calls.
"9:56 p.m., we got the first call at the 911 communications center.
A large boom in the area, then after that we were flooded with phone
calls," said dispatch center coordinator Bob Andrews.

Flight instructor Lea Thompson was in the air when she spotted the
flying debris. "All of a sudden, we just saw a bright white light
coming in front of the plane. It came right over the front of the
nose and descended down...kind of looked like a shooting star. It
disappeared and we didn't think anything about it," Thompson said.
"We were about 3,000 feet on final, coming in to land. First I was
really confused, didn't know what it was. Then I just assumed it
was a falling star. I got a bird's eye view this time, instead of
on the ground. So, I didn't think much of it until I got on the
ground.

A large "boom" soon followed. "Explosion and a boom. We got calls
from the Lawrence County area, all the way down to the southern
Craighead County area," said Andrews. The KAIT newsroom received
calls from as far south as Brinkley and Oil Trough and as far north
and west as West Plains, Missouri.

Although what many saw last night was an unusual phenomenon, it
apparently does occur periodically over time.

Dr. Andrew Sustich is the Dean of Humanities & Social Sciences at
Arkansas State University, and feels certain the event was a meteorite.
"A meteor, striking through the sky is large enough so that it
survives to the lower atmosphere where the air gets thick. They come
down on a very sporadic basis. There is no good time table. There's
no, you know...this is a good time for an event like last night. They
just happen," said Sustich.
Received on Tue 04 Nov 2003 07:44:06 PM PST