[meteorite-list] Meteor Spotted Over Utah

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:31 2004
Message-ID: <200310170504.WAA01831_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.4utah.com/local_news/local_headlines/story.aspx?content_id=8005564E-D251-4525-B2C7-0C8AEE9B923F

Meteorite Spotted Over Salt Lake Valley
ABC 4 News
October 16, 2003

If you think you saw a UFO over the Salt Lake valley
Thursday morning, you may not have been too far off.

NORAD is saying they think the unidentified object
was a meteor but they have yet to confirm their
findings.

ABC 4's Andrew Stack has been close on the tail of
this meteor all day and has more.

Thursday morning, a soldier on the firing range at
Camp Williams looked up to see a blinding flash, and
then a long con trail. It was a tail many others would
see over the next few minutes.

"All of a sudden, my eyes saw something fantastic,"
describes one.

"NORAD right now is researching all their records,"
explains another.

Around 10:30 Thursday morning, some caught a
glimpse of a bright, white light.

"I thought, you know, I'm sitting out here taking UFO
pictures," says Brad Gygi, an eyewitness.

"At the present time, they figure this is the high time of
the season for meteor showers and that's what one of
the suggestions has been, but right now, it is
undetermined to exactly what it is," says one.

First it flew over Camp Williams.

"...saw an airplane going over and then he saw a white
trail that appeared to be coming from the south about
two o'clock and heading to the north at about eight
o'clock," describes LTC Rick West, Camp Williams
Training Site.

Then it was seen over downtown Salt Lake.

"It looked like it was heading for downtown Bountiful,"
says Richard Law, another eyewitness.

But it never made it that far.

"Naturally, with the war going on, I thought, 'oh, oh,
what do we got here?' And then I recognized it
immediately as a comet or a meteor because of its
shape and the way it was going and then when it
exploded and just disappeared, I figured it just burned
out in the atmoshpere."

"I was lucky to get a couple that did turn out," says
Gygi, of his pictures.

Brad Gygi was on his way to work and was lucky
enough to snap a few photos before 'it' exploded.

"It looked really big, a lot bigger than when you see a
plane flying across or something and it was pretty
bright and it looked like a pretty long tail," says Gygi.

"I just feel like anybody who didn't see it, missed out.
It was beautiful. It was just wonderful to see it."

The soldier who first saw this meteor reported it
through his chain of command because he feared the
meteor might hit one of the commuter flights preparing
to land at Salt Lake International.

As it turns out, air traffic controllers at Salt Lake
International took immediate action to ensure safety
as soon as they heard about this explosion in the sky.

They changed incoming landing approaches for a
couple of flights to avoid the area.

There were no close calls, all planes landed safely and
everything shortly returned to normal.
Received on Fri 17 Oct 2003 01:04:26 AM PDT