[meteorite-list] Meteor Shower Blamed for Emergency Calls in England

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 15:35:57 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200709062235.PAA15184_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/display.var.1667960.0.meteorite_shower_blamed_for_emergency

Meteorite shower blamed for emergency calls
By Andrew White
The Northern Echo (United Kingdom)
September 5, 2007

A METEORITE shower is suspected to be the cause of a spate of emergency
calls off the North-East coast tonight.

Humber Coastguard received a number of calls at about 8.45pm reporting
what appeared to be red flares fired into the sky from the vicinity of
Saltscar Buoy, approximately three miles from the shore at Redcar.

The RNLI Atlantic 75 class lifeboat Leicester Challenge 2 was launched
from Redcar to carry out a search.

Humber Coastguard called off the search after they received a large
number of similar calls from along the length of the North-East coast
from Tynemouth to Hull.

Dave Cocks, deputy launching authority at Redcar lifeboat station said:
"Everyone involved was happy that this was a natural phenomenon and not
a real distress signal.

"The sightings along the coast led the coastguard to conclude that the
calls they had received were false alarms with the best of intentions
and the lifeboat was stood down.

"The situation was further complicated by the fact that there was
helicopter activity in the area at exactly the same time and the
aircraft's lights may have been mistaken for distress flares."
Received on Thu 06 Sep 2007 06:35:57 PM PDT