Massive object crashes over Edmonton, Canada

reply to post by Rren


Great post Rren,

Saved me the trouble

About the estimate of meteoroids hitting Earth's atmosphere every year, even 20,000 sounds very low to me. I think that that estimate should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The "extra object" to the right is most likely an internal reflection in the camera's lens.

As for the sounds, they are usually heard some time after (minutes) seeing the event - many may have missed them, and some may simply have been too far away or in an area where the topography tends to deflect sounds away from the listener.

Just to expand further...

Every whiteness experiences a meteor from a different perspective and/or location, and when large events like this are involved, that are seen by thousands of people, every person will describe the event differently. Even trained meteor observers in the same location will disagree on some aspects on some occasions.

Interestingly, I have found that peoples perception or recollection of color in meteors varies tremendously. I think this is often due to people seeing the meteor at different stages in its decent, during which it can often change color completely. Sometimes certain colors are so vivid that I think people fixate on them and only recall seeing the vivid color. when it may have displayed a whole range of colors.

That's just one example of how an excited member of the public can make a poor whiteness in cases like this. Even experienced astronomers can be caught out where meteors are concerned sometimes.

Hello everyone, sorry that I'm using this anonymous user name. You can call me Wally though. Anyways, I saw it come down the other night. I was on the north east end of Edmonton, and yes it did appear to land in Edmonton. But I can assure you that areas as far as Saskatchewan reported seeing it. It was a stroke of luck, that I was driving easterly as it came down. Basically it was a bright flash much like lightening, then a fire ball about the size of a car falling out of the sky. Very beautiful. Was it a ufo? Hardly. There was a meteor shower that evening. This isnt the first time this has been seen. Although I find it quite amusing how quickly people jumped to conclusions on here regarding the event. Perhaps this is insight into the human mind. Anyways, just thought I should say something. Have a good'er.

it appeared to be the color of a welding arc..

only a bit greener

I've rumours it landed in montana... complete bull!

It landed near edmonton.... I'll bet my life on that.

reply to post by KathyT


There's a fair chance you saw it - it was visible for hundreds of miles in every direction, and it would have been very low on the horizon for you.

I'm sure the astronomers investigating this would be interested to hear from you since they need to know how far away the event was visible from. Here's what to do as posted earlier by internos (who is doing a great job here as always!), if you'd like to contribute:

Originally posted by internos
If people want to make a report, they should make it to the Meteorites and Impacts Advisory Committee, a volunteer group of geologists and astronomers which serves as the coordinating body for meteorite and impact reporting and research in Canada. (miac.uqac.ca...)
All these reports help narrow the search area, though that can still be many square kilometres -- maybe 500 square kilometres or more.

reply to post by wrathchild



That's definitely a good description of many of the fireballs I've seen (and matches many descriptions from various reports of fireballs I've seen). When they get above a certain brightness, vivid colors often become washed out, through the sheer intensity of the light. The green hue is probably down to Oxygen.

It should be noted that the brightness is caused by a pressure wave that travels in front of the meteor itself - air molecules are excited to the point where they glow.

That is quite beautiful,saw something very similar,but
nowhere as big ,years ago over Glasgow as a boy,
and that was very impressive,but this must have been
something else to have witnessed!
Cool!

Upon watching the first two videos and reading eye witness accounts I thought it didn't seem like a meteor. Now I'm very confident that it was one. Goes to show, don't make any conclusions until more evidence is collected.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
It should be noted that the brightness is caused by a pressure wave that travels in front of the meteor itself - air molecules are excited to the point where they glow.

This is good information.

I'd like everybody to soak that up just one more time.

edit for my "whiff"

[edit on 21-11-2008 by Rollinster]

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


OH, I know I saw it. I've been talking with friends and calling radio stations down here to see if anyone saw it but no luck so far. They probably were like me... didn't think much about it, and if it hadn't been for this forum, I would have forgotten it.

It was really good to get confirmation here! Thank you for the place to call... I will.

/Mendocino County, northern Calif.

[edit on 21-11-2008 by KathyT]

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.

There's a fair chance you saw it - it was visible for hundreds of miles in every direction, and it would have been very low on the horizon for you.

I'm sure the astronomers investigating this would be interested to hear from you since they need to know how far away the event was visible from. Here's what to do as posted earlier by internos (who is doing a great job here as always!), if you'd like to contribute:

Hey C.H.U.D.,


If I'm not mistaken we had a couple ATSers in this thread whom reported seeing it in Dothan, Alabama and somewhere in the BigBend area here in Florida. I'm pretty sure I was in the shower at the time (either way I missed it ) so I can't verify that, but is it unusal to have seen it from so far away (they saw, not just the object, but the big glow/explosion too)? The skies have been very clear here lately... I'm sure that helps. Seems odd, as a layman, to be able to see the same event from Canada to Florida.

Is that typical?

I live in Lloydminster and saw only one huge flash of light, the meteor itself looked like a missle streaking towards the ground. Coolest thing ive ever seen. the ground rumbled so I think it hit near Lloydmisnster( which is 2 hours east of edmonton)

Originally posted by ToMMaN
Latest reports are that the object made landfall in central Alberta according Alister Ling, an Edmonton-area amateur astronomer who is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, recorded the fireball using equipment from Alan Hildebrand, a meteorite researcher at the University of Calgary.

Ya guys wanna see it. Here is the link!


www.cbc.ca...

That's the high quality version of the footage posted on youtube which internos posted earlier:

Originally posted by internos

Footage captured by Alister Ling University of Calgary

I am not sure if the rest of you know this, but planet called earth is travelling towards the oort asteroid belt, i have seen from vantage point on my north facing deck two so far i thought they were space junk one was in the summer, one a few weeks ago, thing is, if you blinked you would miss it, i am a sky watcher anyway, during the day, anytime, we all should do that, i have no doub't about a celestial object coming down, this planet bears many scars from previous hits, it's just part of the cycle, the big one that is coming sits to the right of the sun and should be visible to the human eye by february or at least your camera, do not look directly at the sun please, is this why they are obscuring the skies ? food for thought. cheers all. vood out

reply to post by MoonMine

okay, i am definately not any type of expert or remotely educated about this, but i do have an idea as to why it lit up, went dark, and back again, from personal experience. With my digital camera i have recorded very intense lighting situations and there was a "darkening effect" for about a second or so after the flash happened, it looked to me like it just kinda overwhelmed the optics in my camera for a sec. looking through my hard drive for the vid, but no luck(this was3 years ago) but i will post when i find it.

This event?

reply to post by pluckynoonez


Great video star for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Rren
Hey C.H.U.D.,


If I'm not mistaken we had a couple ATSers in this thread whom reported seeing it in Dothan, Alabama and somewhere in the BigBend area here in Florida. I'm pretty sure I was in the shower at the time (either way I missed it

) so I can't verify that, but is it unusal to have seen it from so far away (they saw, not just the object, but the big glow/explosion too)? The skies have been very clear here lately... I'm sure that helps. Seems odd, as a layman, to be able to see the same event from Canada to Florida.

Is that typical?

Good question Rren,

Yes, it is typical that a bright meteor can be seen from so far away. Since the height at which meteors start to become visible at is relatively consistent between meteors, at around 80km, all it takes is a clear and low horizon, and a meteor can be seen even way before it surpasses the brightens of Venus (around -4.5 mag.). This is despite the light being diminished and dimmed by passing through many miles of thick atmosphere.

If I recall correctly, on an average clear night, the brightness of a meteor seen close to the horizon is diminished by about 2.5 magnitudes compared to the same one seen directly over head. Thats over 6 times dimmer.

However, it's only the unusually bright events like this one that people tend to notice.

Knowing the height at which meteors are visible at also means that you can be pretty sure that if you see one low on the horizon, it's always going to be many hundreds of miles away!

Here's a diagram I posted earlier on in the thread which might help you get your head around the concept better:


As for the sky flashes/lighting up, at it's peak this thing was probably around the brightness of the sun, and any dust in the atmosphere is going to scatter all that light - it's not really that much different to having a second sunrise (or set) just over the horizon, except that the sun in this case was a meteor in our atmosphere.

"Large" meteors like this one are really like mini-nukes in terms of the energy they release. Much of that energy is lost as light. I believe meteors are considered to be one of the most efficient sources of light in terms of energy supplied versus light output (I could be mistaken).

if I may add...

none of the videos posted really shows the brightness That I witnessed in person in edmonton. Hard to judge by these videos. If a light that bright occurred 80 km in the atmosphere I can easily see why someone thousands of km away could see it.

ATS is the best! Since I first posted this, another friend of mine gave me his report. He was driving on the highway towards Camrose when he saw this sucker. Quote, "I hit my brakes for fear of an impact shockwave." I laughed when he said that but now after seeing the video I believe why he hit the brakes.

Originally posted by voodmon
I am not sure if the rest of you know this, but planet called earth is travelling towards the oort asteroid belt, i have seen from vantage point on my north facing deck two so far i thought they were space junk one was in the summer, one a few weeks ago, thing is, if you blinked you would miss it

There is no such thing as the "oort asteroid belt".

There is however an Oort cloud and an asteroid belt... so which is it we are heading towards ?

Please check out this thread for some info on meteors, and a little speculation.