Loud explosions in Hampton Roads area

Originally posted by ThirdJohnAdams
I'm confused as to how no boom was heard here, when it looked like it was seconds away from hitting the trees.

Very weird.

Please read the rest of the thread. I've already explained this a number of times.

When meteors are seen apparently "at low altitude" they are almost certainly many hundreds of km away. Any booms made would likely not reach you.

Originally posted by ThirdJohnAdams
There were other incidents like this one around the country?

Yes. As above, please read the thread. I linked to three events that have been discussed here on ATS in the past 6 months back on the first page of this thread.

Events like this happen "all the time". Usually the general public do net get to hear about them, since in the past we did not have as many meteor observing networks, cameras pointing to the sky, etc, and the mainstream media never carries these events unless there is footage (read ratings). In this case only local media is covering it, so chances are if you were not on a forum like ATS, you would not have heard about it.

Originally posted by symmetricAvenger

btw this is the seventh so far

Seventh so far???

Counting from when/where?

2. How frequently do fireballs occur?

Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth's atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.

Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event. As a general thumbrule, there are only about 1/3 as many fireballs present for each successively brighter magnitude class, following an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about 1 fireball of magnitude -6 or better for every 200 hours of meteor observing, while a fireball of magnitude -4 can be expected about once every 20 hours or so.

Source: The American Meteor Society

Originally posted by symmetricAvenger

sounds cool neways wonder if it hit the ground?

We'll just have to wait and see... but it sounds as though there is a good chance (if it did not end up in the sea).

Originally posted by squiz
the evidence does seem to suggest that the incandescence, flickering and disjointed flare ups is a result of an electrical interaction with the atmosphere.

Hi squiz,

Can you please post a link to this evidence you mention concerning the mechanism of meteor luminocity? I am unaware of any such evidence that connects the light produced by a meteor to any electrical phenomena.

Thanks.

Originally posted by squiz
A new field of thought is arising on the subject that can account for the things that gravity and friction cannot. Think about it, a meteor entering the atmosphere will be subject to a rapid charge differential.

What is there to account for exactly? The physical process by which meteoroids produce light has already been accounted for and explained. We know that ionization due to the meteoroid slamming into air molocules produces the light. It's a similar process to that which goes on in a flourecent light fixture.

Originally posted by squiz
why do we find meteors without craters

Because the vast majority of meteors are slowed down and or turned in to small bits by our atmosphere (see my previous posts), after which they fall to the ground relitively slowly. Therefore craters are very rare.

Originally posted by squiz
and craters without meteors?

Any meteor making it to the ground with enough velocity/mass to form a decent sized crater will almost certainly be vaporised in the resulting blast. In cases where it is not destroyed completely (eg large iron meteorites), the meteorite itself may well be buried deep under ground, and there are known craters where this is believed to be the case, since a large/dense mass has been detected below the surface.

Originally posted by Pamie
How hard could it be to find the thing?

Harder than most realize. First the witness reports need to be collated and studied. From that a rough trajectory/orbit can usually be worked out, but this usually results in an area of many tens of square miles that may be a potential fall site.

Finding it then depends on the terrain, and luck...

If you check the following threads, you can get a pretty good idea of what is involved:
UFO - meteor like object with sonic boom above Dallas and Austin Texas!
Massive object crashes over Edmonton, Canada

sorry if already posted, didn't read whole thread but this is now on yahoo:

news.yahoo.com...

What about surveillance video? You mean to tell me that no one and/or no businesses had a camera pointed towards the area? I mean, even a video of a blue flash would be interesting at this point (since there seem to be no answers).

I live near the area, upstate ny, we heard some large booms last night and probably mistook whatever happened for thunder, weather changing and what not.

I live in Sterling Virginia and also heard what sounded like a small explosion Sunday evening. I'm not sure of the time but it was getting close to dark, so I would think it was around 8PM. My wife was near me when it happend and I asked her if she heard it, and she thought it sounded like thunder. I told her it didn't sound like thunder to me, so I walked out on the porch to take a look. The sky was a little gray but there was no signs of the type of clouds that would produce thunder, and I didn't see anything else that was strange. I didn't hear any other explosions the rest of the evening. I'm sure what I heard was some type of explosion, and pretty much forgot about it until I read this story. The strange thing is Sterling is aournd 25 miles West of Washington, DC and about a 2 1/2 hour drive Northwest of Virginia Beach. I will be on the lookout this evening.

Looks like some one created a custom google map of sightnings, with a line pointing to the direction of the lights.

*edit* The link is too long... you will need to go to the page and find neicull's post, to copy paste the URL. As all accounts show so far, it happened over the water to the east.

Here is the post and page
hamptonroads.com...

Submitted by neicull on Mon, 03/30/2009 at 11:10 am.
I started a google map... contribute to it.. Just add a pin where you were when you saw the lights and a line in the direction in the sky you think the lights were.. not necessarily the direction the light were headed if at all. maps.google.com...,-76.232758&spn=0.372474,0.617981&z=11

[edit on 3/30/09 by Cyprex]

If anybody has a metal detector over there you may wanna go detect in the area, meteorites are worth some good $$....

Has any videos surfaced?
pictures??

Local news station and eyewitnesses from the area.

Many witnesses are talking about it from the area.

www.wvec.com...

Here is another site with info about the "Flash-Bang" (sorry is someone post it, didn't see it.)

Taken from space.com

A mysterious flash of light and loud boom occurred over the skies of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Va., on Sunday night, but just what caused the phenomenon is still unknown. Calls from local residents to 911 began coming in at around 9:45 p.m. EDT, with some people reporting their doors and windows rattled when the boom went off, according to reports from WVEC-TV. Similar reports in the past often have turned out to involve meteors, which can explode in the atmosphere to create a loud noise and bright flash of light that streaks across the sky. However, often times the source of events like this are not determined. In a recent scientific first, meteorite fragments of an asteroid that was spotted in space before it exploded over the African desert in October were recently recovered and examined by scientists. The jury is still out as to what caused Sunday's event. Local National Weather Service meteorologists have been in touch with the U.S. Navy, Air Force and NASA, but have not heard back these sources and don't know whether they are actively investigating the cause of the boom, said Wakefield NWS forecaster Jeff Lewitsky. "The only thing we know for sure at this point is that it wasn't meteorologically related," Lewitsky told SPACE.com. Lewitsky said meteorologists have looked back at their radar and lightning strike data during the time period and didn't find anything that could explain the event. He also said they had received no more reports on the incident and no photos of the light streak have come in. Officials at Norfolk International Airport had received reports of the light and explosion, but hadn't observed anything out of the ordinary at the airport, according to WVEC-TV. The National Weather Service told WVEC-TV that the reports of the light and the bang were coming in from Maryland to North Carolina. The National Weather Service released a statement at 11:17 p.m. Sunday: "Numerous reports have been called in to this office and into local law enforcement concerning what appeared to be flashes of light in the sky over the Suffolk/Virginia Beach area. We are confident in saying that this was not lightning ... and have been in contact with military and other government agencies to determine the cause. So far ... we have not seen or heard of any damage from this and will continue to inquire as to the cause."

www.space.com...

reply to post by projectvxn


Funny you say that. I'm a skeptic, but I've noticed world wide a lot of news stories lately about objects falling from the sky, for about a few years now...

Is all that space junk finally falling back to earth? Do we need Reinforced Roofing standards now? heh

reply to post by Brainiac


And for you UFO buffs entertainment, could this be a Shot down Alien Spacecraft? Are we on a regular basis at War with the unknown? heh

Some are saying that this was likely a junk reentry:

WASHINGTON - The flashing lights and booming sounds that astounded people up and down the East Coast Sunday night likely came from "just a piece of orbiting space junk," says the spokesman for the Naval Observatory.

"I believe what people saw was the spectacular decay of the rocket booster that was used to launch the most recent Soyuz to the International Space Station," Geoff Chester, spokesman for the Naval Observatory, tells WTOP.

Chester says he's 99.44 percent sure that's the source of the yellow and orange flashes seen around 9:45 p.m.

Source: wtop.com


It may well have been an artificial meteor, but from what the astronomer said in this video that Pamie posted on the previous page, it sounds like it was a bit too short/fast for a reentry.

We'll have to wait for more data, and hopefully some footage, before we can be certain IMO.




[edit on 30-3-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

reply to post by spellbound


no doubt...
should have left affleck on that rock
but, to the topic, there sure has been alot of meteoric displays over the past year or so, hope its not a precursor to a larger event

reply to post by Brainiac


you know... i was reading some fringe news that was stating all the lights & commotion was u.s. air defenses responding to unidentified objects approaching the capitol at a speed of mach 1, dont know if this news source is any better than the national enquirer, but it makes an interesting story.

This article claims the lights are caused by mysterious aircraft downing two F-22 Raptor's.

I ran across this article at whatdoesitmean.com. I can not tell you the authenticity of the information, though it certainly is thought provoking.

US Warplanes Repel ‘Mysterious’ Attack On Washington D.C.

www.whatdoesitmean.com...

According to:

www.space.com...

It was:

Mysterious East Coast Boom Was Falling Russian Rocket

As per rufusdrak's earlier post. ( The yahoo story has also been updated.)

Regards.....KK

[edit on 30-3-2009 by kinda kurious]