UFO over Tok Alaska

I read my local newspaper today and thought it was neat
link

Kinda weird that this just happened in Canada too.
Couple key points for those to lazy to read the whole article,
it went sonic when it hit the atmosphere,
lots of witnesses,
and coolest of all it left a zigzag trail.

thoughts?

I dont think it was a UFO but probably part of the recent meteor shower:

Stellar Meteor Shower Jan. 3

By Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
posted: 19 December 2008
09:52 am ET


For meteor observers, the presence of an almost-full Moon cast a bright pall on this month's performance of the Geminid Meteor Shower, normally one of the best meteor displays of the year. But for a wild card, another very good meteor shower may be right around corner. And for this one, the Moon will not play a factor at all.

So, get out your 2009 calendar and put a big circle around Saturday morning, Jan. 3.

That's the expected peak date for the Quadrantids, a notoriously unpredictable meteor display. In 2009, peak activity is due to occur in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 3 and will strongly favor western North America. If the "Quads" reach their full potential, observers blessed with clear, dark skies could be averaging one or two meteor sightings per minute in the hour or two prior to the break of dawn.

The Quadrantid (pronounced KWA-dran-tid) meteors provides one of the most intense annual meteor displays, with a brief, sharp maximum lasting but a few hours. Adolphe Quetelet of Brussels Observatory discovered the shower in the 1830's, and shortly afterward it was noted by several other astronomers in Europe and America.

www.space.com...

With this type of event, it's extremely unlikely that it's related to any meteor shower. In general, meteor showers are produced by comets, which are made of extremely fragile material (think consistency of cigarette ash), so they usually disintegrate very high up, and there has never been any recorded case of meteorites making it to the ground that are connected with a known meteor shower.

What gives this event away as *probably* not belonging to a known meteor shower is the sonic boom, which is usually indicative of meteorites making it into the lower part of our atmosphere or the ground.

This one looks like another classic small-asteroid, just like the Saskatchewan/Alberta event that occurred a few weeks back, and many others that are seen in the evening hours. See this post for more info.

The same story is also being covered here in the breaking news forum:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I have a friend who's mom is in Tok right now, and he's starting to get interested in spacey stuff, so he should like this story...

“I could kind of hear it still rumbling, like thunder,” she recalled. “I thought, what in the world?”

Turning her eyes to the sky, Olding saw the oddest contrail.

“It was just like somebody took a pen and made a white cloud that went up and down and up and down and squiggley,” she said, describing the pattern

Others called 911.

Makes me wish I would still tolerate standing outside at night when it's past -40

Of course the FAA is going to make an initial claim the it was a meteor. What you realy have to think about is if it was a meteor then why did the FAA refuse to coment when the fairbanks daily news minor asked them for one. Another thing that must be noted is that something the size of a basketball comming through the atmosphere with enough speed to make that loud of a sonic boom would have filled half the state with dust and debries upon makeing landfall. I have lived in Tok Alaska long enough to know the sight of a natural occurence such as a meteor from what happened that monday. I'm telling everybody that reads this that a meteor dosn't create a con trail that runs in a zig zag pattern nor does it have loops in the con trail. that would suggest someone trying desperately to bring a vehicle under controle to me.

In the end it all boils down to your persanol opinion, though I know what mine is.

Tok Man

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Another thing that must be noted is that something the size of a basketball comming through the atmosphere with enough speed to make that loud of a sonic boom would have filled half the state with dust and debries upon makeing landfall.

No it would not.

Unless a meteor is above a certain size (much bigger than a basketball) it won't retain enough momentum to keep going at any significant speed in the lower layers of the atmosphere. Even if something of a meteor this size were to survive to make it to the ground (not always a given by a long shot), it would have been slowed to free fall speed well before it reached the ground.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
I have lived in Tok Alaska long enough to know the sight of a natural occurence such as a meteor from what happened that monday.

You saw the meteor itself then, or just the flash/trail?

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
I'm telling everybody that reads this that a meteor dosn't create a con trail that runs in a zig zag pattern nor does it have loops in the con trail. that would suggest someone trying desperately to bring a vehicle under controle to me.

Example of a meteor's smoke train taken from the International Meteor Organization's Photographic Handbook:


I'd say that was a zig zag pattern. Wouldn't you?


Example of a Perseid meteor's smoke train taken from spaceweather.com's 2008 Perseid photo gallery:

Link:

On August 12th, an exploding Perseid fireball (mag. -5) left this smoky trail of debris over Pauleasca, Romania. "I missed the fireball itself, but photographed the debris twisting in the wind," says photographer Vlad Dumitrescu. "Later, the trail made a loop and encircled the Pleiades. Here is the entire sequence."

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
In the end it all boils down to your persanol opinion, though I know what mine is.

Here's mine: You'll need to spend more time observing meteors if you actually want to see one produce a train like this.

Not all meteors are this big, and the vast majority that you will have seen would be small flakes of comet and asteroid, which is a totally different 'kettle of fish' to a fireball that penetrates deep enough to cause booms and leave trails like that.

For a train to last long enough for it to twist and distort like we see in the examples that I posted, the meteor needs to be fairly bright - usually at least fireball brightness!

Not all meteors produce zig zagging trains since most you see are not bright enough and do not penetrate deep enough in our atmosphere, so you are unlikely to see that again, but if you look often enough and at the right times, you'll probably see a smaller less impressive example of a trail distorting, like the last I posted.

I have seen (and even photographed on one occasion) these trains as they distort, and I can promise you that they do... I've also seen the meteors that produced them, and I'm sure some members here at ATS have as well!

Edit to add one more example for good measure:


Sourced from spaceweather.com's 2008 Orionid photo gallery

Time lapse camera taking pictures at one minute intervals captured a bolide from the Orionids meteor shower. The bolide explosion evidently left a bubble of glowing debris that expanded for at least 15 minutes.

[edit on 19-1-2009 by C.H.U.D.]