[meteorite-list] Norway again?

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Aug 22 10:05:00 2006
Message-ID: <bo3me25i3s5ihikl0pg4f6ec9pe75fush7_at_4ax.com>

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1430392.ece

UFO lit up northern skies
Calls streamed in to local police stations during the night after an
unidentified flying object darted over the night skies in northern Norway. A top
astronomer, though, thinks it was another meteorite.
Astronomer Knut J?rgen R?ed ?degaard thinks the object flying though the
northern skies Monday night was a meteorite.

Several police districts logged reports from members of the public who observed
"something" flying at high speed.

"What they're talking about here is some sort of flying object, and we can't
explain what it was," Oddgeir Slettli, operations leader for the Midtre
H?logaland Police District, told dagbladet.no.

Observations were reported from Finnsnes to Trondheim. The main search and
rescue station in northern Norway (Hovedredningssentralen Nord-Norge) reported
that calls also came from crews on board ships off the northern coast, according
to Dagbladet.

"It was colored white, green and gold, and lights seemed to blow off it like it
was a sparkler," said one observer, Andre Gr?nmo. "It looked like it was a
comet, and it was around four- to five times larger than a plane, and it flew
much faster."

Slettli said others described a "green, lighted ball with a tail" that flew low.
He said neither the Defense Department's radar station or its rocket facility at
And?ya, nor the tower at Evenes airport, which serves Harstad and Narvik, had
picked up the object.Slettli said calls came from people in Narvik, Vester?len
and Lofoten among other places, just before midnight on Monday.

A flurry of reports also came over the Coast Guard radio, and from an SAS flight
and a Hurtigruten (Coastal Voyage) passenger ship.

Knut J?rge R?ed ?degaard, one of Norway's most well-known astronomers, said he
thinks the UFO was actually another meteorite, a large rock containing a lot of
chemical elements. There have been confirmed reports of at least two meteorites
hitting Norway since June.

"When they enter the earth's atmosphere and meet the air, they warm up and can
light up in a second," he told dagbladet.no.

This one's contents, the astronomer said, could explain why it seemed to change
color as it flew through the night sky, which only recently has started getting
dark again after the summer's midnight sun.
Received on Tue 22 Aug 2006 10:06:06 AM PDT