[meteorite-list] Loud Bang In Ohio Might Be A Sonic Boom From A Meteor

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:26:35 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200702152126.NAA12075_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070215/NEWS01/70215015/1002

UPDATE: Last night's 'big bang' might be a meteor
By JIM SABIN
The Advocate (Ohio)
Fbruary 25, 2007

NEWARK - Something happened at around 9 p.m. Wednesday that a lot of
people heard.

But nobody seems to have any idea what it was.

"It" was a loud bang, something loud enough to be heard all over the
county, and loud enough to make small objects move in houses.

Reports have rolled into The Advocate from Hanover to Heath, from
Buckeye Lake to Granville. Rumors range from an earthquake to a meteor
strike, a sonic boom to something ice-related.

While we may never know for sure, at least one scientist believes the
meteor could be the answer.

Mike Hansen, director of the Ohio Seismic Network, said there's no
evidence to suggest an earthquake could have caused the bang, especially
not over the range specified. NBC-4 has fielded calls from Fairfield,
Muskingum and Pickaway counties, and the National Weather Service heard
similar tales from Cincinnati, Wilmington and Lebanon.

Jeff Gill, of Granville, said he saw a meteor with a relatively long
trail, with red, green and gold coloration. It was headed east to west
and lasted about three seconds; after it faded, the sonic boom washed
over him, he said.

"I saw it first. It was the most eerie, cool, scary, wonderful thing.
You just see this dragon tail going across the sky," said Gill, who also
writes a religion column for The Advocate. "All of a sudden, everything
goes boom."

He said he checked his watch and thought it said 9:42 p.m., but now he
can't be certain. A seismograph at the Ohio Seismic Network's office in
Alum Creek picked up something that Hansen said was more than likely
something noise-related, but other seismographs, including a more
sensitive machine in the same building, didn't catch anything.

That report was at 8:42 p.m., which is more consistent with the other
reports.

"His description there of the colors of it are consistent with a
meteorite," said Hansen, who has also studied meteorites. "That would be
an explanation of a sonic boom-type phenomenon."

A sonic boom travels across terrain behind the aircraft - or meteorite -
creating it, he said. The speed of an average meteorite, 25,000 miles
per hour, would certainly allow for similar reports across the state,
and if the object was at a low trajectory, it could be heard literally
far and wide.

The Licking County Sheriff's Office reported about 10 calls between 8:35
p.m. and 3:48 a.m. from residents hearing loud noises. Five of the calls
came between 8:51 and 9:43 p.m.

Hansen said he hears similar time discrepancies all the time when
dealing with earthquakes, which often are also noticed as loud bangs.

"People are notoriously bad at reporting the times," he said. "You have
to look at these peoples' reports with a bit of skepticism on timing."

Most reported the bang at or near 9 p.m. or a few minutes before the
Ohio State basketball game was ending on TV.

"The type of waves that I see is not earthquake-type stuff. What bothers
me is we don't see it anywhere else,' Hansen said. "Right now this is
mysterious to me."

The National Weather Service's station in Wilmington is equally lost,
especially after hearing calls from the Cincinnati area. The only common
factor is that each area was affected by Tuesday's ice storm.

"It definitely wasn't thunder," a meteorologist there said. "We're kind
of stumped on that ourselves."

Readers of NewarkAdvocate.com reported similar stories - a bang loud
enough to shake houses, but with nothing apparently wrong afterward.

"We live in Indian Hills (west of Granville off Ohio 16) and the
explosion at approximately 9 p.m. was so loud it shook our house!" one
reader wrote. "We thought a sheet of ice came off of our roof onto the
deck or our roof had collapsed, but after further investigation we could
find nothing amiss."

Not everyone agreed that it's a meteor, however. NBC4 meteorologist Jym
Ganahl said every contact he's heard about the bang was writing from an
area that got some layer of ice earlier this week.

"I'm 100 percent certain that it's ice," he said. "It's only the areas
that had a lot of ice. None have been from areas with just snow."

Hansen did offer one idea, but not one that would explain the noise over
such a large area.

He described a phenomenon called a "frostquake," in which water seeping
into the ground and freezing can cause the earth to break up and create
localized bangs.

But at least one other reader thought the sound came from above.

"We live just outside Jacksontown. We heard them several times starting
at around 8:30. We looked outside. The stars were unusually bright.
Sounded like the sonic booms I used to hear all the time when I was a
kid. You don't hear much about those any more," one reader wrote.

An NBC 4 reporter contacted Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which
reported it wasn't running any exercises Wednesday night that could
account for a sonic boom.

A spokesman in NASA's media center said the agency doesn't track meteors
or meteorites. He referred questions to U.S. Strategic Command or North
American Aerospace Defense Command, which did not immediately return
calls seeking comment.
Received on Thu 15 Feb 2007 04:26:35 PM PST