[meteorite-list] Flashes of Light Seen Over Australia

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Jun 13 12:22:13 2006
Message-ID: <200606131608.JAA28033_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.sidneyherald.com/articles/2006/06/12/news/news05.txt

What was that in the sky?
By Crysta Parkinson
Sydney Herald
June 13, 2006

Meteorite? Satellite? Something else?

Whatever it was, the area has been buzzing about something in the sky
near Culbertson around 10 p.m. Monday.

"The only thing that we saw was a flash of light," Don Steppler,
Richland County resident, said. "There were several small flashes, then
a large one. It sounded like a jet, like a jet engine after it broke the
sound barrier."

Steppler lives four miles east of Brockton, about 15 miles west of
Culbertson. He and his son were working outside at the time.

A gathering of people at Girard Hall also witnessed the incident, as did
individuals throughout the Culbertson area.

Rumors began to circulate that law enforcement and federal agents
swarmed to the site, looking to see what might have fallen from the sky.

Law enforcement, yes.

"We had a deputy out there Monday night, but he didn't find anything,"
Richland County Sheriff Brad Baisch said. He said he couldn't begin to
speculate as to what people might have seen.

As for federal agents?

They aren't saying one way or the other. An agent at the Glasgow field
office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which covers Roosevelt
County, said she could not confirm or deny the involvement of government
agents.

Whatever it was, it certainly got people talking. Patrons at the Wild
West Diner in Culbertson had been talking about the sound, but they
hadn't noticed any investigators.

Culbertson Mayor Gordon Oelkers said law enforcement was investigating
what was definitely "a light streak" and a "sonic boom or bang," but he
didn't have theories on what it may have been.

Deputies from the Roosevelt County Sheriff's Department were unavailable
for comment.

Rumors that the weather service was pegging the light as a meteorite or
a comet, though, were exaggerated.

The National Weather Service out of Glasgow said they had gotten calls
from the Roosevelt County Sheriff's Office and other law enforcement, so
any information they could give would be "that much more removed." They
also said their radar is not configured to monitor anything that "fast
moving," and declined to guess what it might have been.

According to www.meteorite.com, most meteoroids disintegrate when
entering the Earth's atmosphere. An estimated 500 meteorites, ranging in
size from marble-size to basketball-size or larger, do reach the surface
each year, though only five or six of these are typically recovered and
made known to scientists. Few meteorites are large enough to create
impact craters.

Instead, they typically arrive at the surface at their terminal velocity
and, at most, create a small pit.
Received on Tue 13 Jun 2006 12:08:05 PM PDT