[meteorite-list] Suffolk man says he saw meteor hit

From: GeoZay at aol.com <GeoZay_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 16:12:27 EDT
Message-ID: <cb5.521528df.3709192b_at_aol.com>

Okay...below is most of the article about what this guy saw. First of all,
the time of sighting was at 9:45 pm Sunday NIGHT. If it wasn't glowing and was
in the process of "dark flight" when it hit the water, he's got one heck of
a good eyesight. It would have to be traveling at least a couple hundred
miles per hour when it went over his car. At that velocity or more and at night,
I doubt I could have picked up on a large object whistling by overhead. I
know I wouldn't have been able to see it...particularly while driving a car.
Then a meteorite that has yet to land, has a few minutes of dark flight to
experience. I'm kinda curious as to how this guy would make the connection of
seeing a bright meteor, followed by a few minutes of darkness(which it would have
to have during dark flight), to the whistling noise overhead that landed in
the water...unless he was claiming it to be incandescent. :O) He also says
that he was driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge "when night turned briefly
into day. " "There it was, coming right at my car. It was so fast that I
didn't even have time to think that I might have been in danger. It shot right
over my car, it went down in the water right between the two bridges."
Well...I'm convinced he's alluding that it was incandescent all the way to the water.
So for it to be incandescent to the water, the meteorite would have to be
about ten tons plus traveling over 9,000 mph. That must have been one heck of a
splash. :O)
George Zay
Most of the article below:
"But only one person has said he saw where it landed.
Joe Butler of Suffolk says he was driving south across the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge-Tunnel when night turned briefly into day.
"The sky was light all of a sudden, like it was daytime," Butler recalled on
Friday. "There it was, coming right at my car. It was so fast that I didn't
even have time to think that I might have been in danger.
"It shot right over my car, it went down in the water right between the two
bridges."
Butler said he was near the tallest part of the bridge, near Fisherman
Island, where the northbound and southbound lanes separate widely. The meteor, he
said, splashed into the water between them.
"I was like, what in the world is going on?" Butler said. "My daughter, she
said, 'Wow, what was that, Daddy?' and I said, 'I don't know, babe, I think
that was a falling star.' "
The meteor flashed past Hampton Roads around 9:45 p.m. Sunday, briefly
lighting up the landscape.
It was followed one to two minutes later by a sonic boom, which experts said
meant it had penetrated deep enough into the atmosphere to leave
meteorites.<<

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Received on Sat 04 Apr 2009 04:12:27 PM PDT