[meteorite-list] Fireball Lights Up Florida Coast

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Sep 22 12:29:53 2005
Message-ID: <200509221628.j8MGSaU09758_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050922/NEWS01/509220325/1006

Eerie glow lights up Fla. coast

Brevardians saw it; government didn't

BY CHRIS KRIDLER
FLORIDA TODAY
September 22, 2005

CAPE CANAVERAL - The fireball that streaked across the sky Tuesday
evening, seen up and down Florida's East Coast, remained a mystery
Wednesday.

It was easier for many people to say what it wasn't, such as space junk,
predictable pieces of rockets and such that burn up in the atmosphere.

"U.S. Strategic Command did not track any objects for re-entry,"
spokesman Jeff Jones said from Nebraska.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command also didn't track anything
suspicious.

"We don't know what it is, either," Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kelly said.

Gary Halfhide was in Palm Bay when he saw the fireball. It looked like a
burning metal object with a metallic-looking silvery glow behind it, he
said, that lasted four or five seconds as it descended from a high
altitude. "The front of it was just so bright," he said.

Meg Griecomancini of Cocoa Beach saw it from Palm Bay, too, and said the
color reminded her of a glow stick: "It was really pretty."

Could it have been a super-secret spy plane or submarine missile? NASA
and the Air Force said no Kennedy Space Center or local military
operations could have put on such a show Tuesday.

"It's quite the curiosity," spokesman Ken Warren said at Patrick Air
Force Base.

Joe Jordan of Port St. John, the Brevard County representative for the
Mutual UFO Network, had received no reports to investigate. It "sounds
like a pretty natural thing," he said.

"We haven't had any aliens show up yet, anyway," said Brevard Community
College planetarium Director Mark Howard.

There was no obvious meteor shower to blame, with the Orionids coming up
in late October. "It's probably just a random, sporadic meteor," Howard
said.

Still, something is in the air.

Bill Morris of Suntree was working at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
early Monday morning and saw a bright object zooming across the sky --
apparently another meteor. Maybe Earth is crossing the debris trail of a
comet, he suggested.

"It was streaking as it went, and all of a sudden it just flashed," he
said, "and you heard a faint boom, and it just disappeared."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-bk-meteor092105,0,5977335.story

Light in the sky may have been meteor
By Jeff Libby
Orlando Sentinel
September 21, 2005

A mysterious ball of fire that soared through the sky around sunset two
nights ago may have been a meteor.

Several people sighted the occurrence around 7:32 p.m. Tuesday,
officials said.

An off-duty policeman from Palm Bay walking his dog called the U.S.
Coast Guard first.

"He said it looked like a huge flaming ball that went off into the
horizon," said Daniel Yates, a Coast Guard petty officer in Port Canaveral.

Then the calls started pouring in to Coast Guard stations from
Jacksonville to Ft. Pierce, at least 20 of them.

"They were saying it looked like a flare, but that it was way too big to
be a flare," Yates said.

By today it was still unclear what people had seen.

Coast Guard officials differed on whether it was a meteor shower or just
one lone meteor that had crashed into the sea.

An Orlando police officer said the fireball was a meteor, Yates said.

NASA did not immediately return calls for comment.

A meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Dennis
Decker, said, "It wasn't a weather event. Or let's put it this way. We
don't think it was," he said. "For so many people to have seen it, it
was something bigger than a lightning event."

The Coast Guard station at Ponce Inlet sent out a lifeboat around 8:40
p.m. after receiving about six calls, Petty Officer John Chandler said.

The boat searched without success until 1 a.m. for any boat that may
have been in distress, Chandler said.

Another boat went out at first light, around 6:30 a.m., he said.

"We just had to be sure there wasn't anything out there," Chandler said.
Received on Thu 22 Sep 2005 12:28:36 PM PDT