Nice video footage of Meteor over Croatia

I totally agree with the above post. I think it is good to be skeptical but you can overdue it. Everything isn't a sinister plot. It's a meteor they happen all the time....No big deal.

If something like this can be seen by humans, I see every reason to exist. It's inspiring and breathtaking. I don't understand how a meteor can be visible that close, but there are never reports of them hitting the earth... why? Is that how huge they are just passing by? How far approx. do you think the meteor is? Thanks!

I am on of those Croatian freaks so I will give yall a summary of local news and reports.

Well apparently, the meteor came from the south, south-east – it was sighted above Sibenik and several other places on the Dalmation coast and it landed somewhere between Zagreb and Ljubljana. People could feel the ground trembling more than 50km away. Both Croatian and Slovenian authorities don’t know the exact location of impact but it is probably somewhere on the border.

Its appearance first caused a lot of excitement, happiness and hope since Dalmatians were sure it will hit either Slovenia or Zagreb, in Zagreb they saw it crashing in the middle of Ljubljana while Slovenians though there is no way it will reach them so it will probably destroy something in Croatia. When there were neither casualties nor material damage reported, there was a huge wave of depression followed by either collective or individual suicides. It was just another day in Balkans. It was just another meteor…

The only thing I find awkward though is that there is still no reports from the crash site. Both Slovenia and Croatia don’t know anything about it!! It only takes you 1h to get from Zagreb to Ljubljana.
Maybe someone else wants to investigate this before we are allowed to sneak around…

Oftopik:
You know, they have been investigating the Pag island for a decade or so. The government says it is NASA bla bla. We have a lot of traditional religious, paranormal, mystical and extraterrestrial stories from that place…

Thats really cool, isnt that a shooting star?

I've seen one of this size myself, though moving somewhat slower. Awe inspiring I can tell ya.
I dont believe the last two scenes with the meteor actually hitting the ground are real. They look real good though.

The fireball in Croatia was a real event it seems. As people have said, meteors occur all the time, and there is no reason to doubt that this one did not occur.

What is missleading however, is that the video that was shown was not connected to the Croatian event - as I said it's not even a meteor. Just another case of the media putting their foot in it.

See this link.

It's a shame no one captured this event on video. I'm sure it would have been very impressive to behold!

Originally posted by christopher.eugene
I don't understand how a meteor can be visible that close, but there are never reports of them hitting the earth... why? Is that how huge they are just passing by? How far approx. do you think the meteor is? Thanks!

In the case of real meteors, they are only visible (luminous) at great height (10's of Km). 80-120 Km is the height at which most meteors are first seen. After having traveled through a few 10's of Km of atmosphere, they will have lost a substantial portion of their mass in most cases, then air resistance will slow them down to the point where they no longer retain cosmic velocity, and they free-fall as non-luminous objects if they manage to make it this far (the vast majority don't). This phase is known as "dark flight". This would be true for meteors under approx. 1m in size. It is also heavily dependent on the composition of the meteor.

In the case of the Croatian fireball, which was a -20 mag. event, the initial size of the meteoroid would probably have been around the size of a basket ball, at a guess.

Meteorite recovery does happen every once in a while. A classic example is the Peekskill meteorite. Here is a video of the event.

Larger meteors, if they are dense enough, are capable of retaining cosmic velocity, and in rare cases (perhaps once in every 100-200 years) they might impact the ground without going through a "dark-flight" phase. Meteorites like this are potentially very destructive if they impact a populated area. Even if they don't, they can cause a great deal of damage eg. Tunguska.

Hope this answers your questions.

For more info on the subject, see this wikipedia page.