[meteorite-list] Hundreds See Fireballs Fall From Sky In Spain

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:31:57 2004
Message-ID: <200401050131.RAA04910_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B509043.htm

Hundreds see fireballs fall from sky in Spain
Reuters
January 4, 2004

MADRID, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Hundreds of witnesses reported seeing fireballs
cross the skies of northern Spain on Sunday in what authorities said may
have been a disintegrating meteorite, Spanish radio said.

The bright flashes were spotted at around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) in a swathe
across the northern half of Spain, from the eastern city of Valencia to
the northwestern pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela.

In some cases, objects were reported to have fallen to earth.

"I left the house at around 12 minutes to six. I heard a big explosion, like
an earth tremor, and a white cloud of smoke formed around a nearby mountain
which took a long time to disappear," a local official from the northern
region of Palencia told the radio.

Civil Guard officials told the radio an object had plunged from the skies
in the northern province of Leon.

Spain's civil aviation authority ruled out the possibility of a plane crash.

Jose Angel Docobo, director of the University of Santiago's observatory,
said the phenomenon could have been caused by a rock orbiting the sun
which had collided with the earth.
Received on Sun 04 Jan 2004 08:31:55 PM PST