Breaking: UFO in Northern Germany

This is from the front page of yahoo.de , the german version of yahoo:

de.news.yahoo.com...

"Hamburg (dpa) - Eine mysteriöse Lichtkugel am Himmel hat am Dienstagabend zahlreiche Menschen in Norddeutschland erschreckt. Bei Polizeistationen und Feuerwehren in Bremen, Hamburg und Niedersachsen berichteten Augenzeugen von einer «brennenden Kugel» oder einem «leuchtenden Gegenstand am Himmel»."

Rough Translation:
A mysterious "lightball" seen in the skies of Northern Germany on Tuesday evening surprised/scared many people. Eye witnesses reported they had seen a "burning ball" or some sort of glowing object in the sky.

According to the Police speaker of Bremen, witnesses allege they this object disintegrated and was seen fallen to the ground.....

...some expert believe that this could have also been a meteorite.

WOW! This is in the GERMAN MAINSTREAM NEWS! Something is definitely up...



[edit on 14-10-2009 by thereaintnospoon]

Argh and I of course missed it! Well I would have missed it anyways, the light pollution in Hamburg is unbelievable.

I'll check the newspapers here if they commented on the incident...

I can testify this.
I saw a headline this morning in a newspaper here in Berlin.
Didnt read into it though.

From the description, it sounds exactly like a Bolide. I think another Bolide was spotted falling somewhere else in Europe yesterday as well.

reply to post by defcon5


What is a Boldie?

Errr.. it sounds like a meteorite to me.

I don't see why all the fuss

Found a picture of the mysterious object:




Welt Online

The fire department received more than 50 calls, people thought it was a burning plane but the airport and the fire department cleared that possibility out. Witnesses in Bremen saw the object falling apart and hitting the ground. The location of the crash hasn't been found yet, experts say it could have been a meteorite.

I'd hazard a guess that this is the same object spotted over Holland as well:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by thereaintnospoon


Bolide

The word bolide comes from the Greek βολις, (bolis) which can mean a missile or to flash. The IAU has no official definition of bolide and generally considers the term synonymous with fireball. The term is more often used among geologists than astronomers where it means a very large impactor. For example, the USGS uses the term to mean a generic large crater-forming projectile "to imply that we do not know the precise nature of the impacting body ... whether it is a rocky or metallic asteroid, or an icy comet, for example".[8] Astronomers tend to use the term to mean an exceptionally bright fireball, particularly one that explodes (sometimes called a detonating fireball).

Looks like Chad found the other object I was talking about.
When one of these falls normally a group of them fall around the same time, expect to see more in the coming days.

reply to post by defcon5



Thanks pal.

Yeah now I am leaning more towards a meteorite as well. The pics of the above mentioned thread along with this definition makes it the most likely possibility.

a link to a report on german television (RTL):

RTL News Report

a rough translation (i'm german):

"the trail of light that this 'apparition in the sky' has been dragging along can be clearly seen on this photograph. at about 19:00 the lightball shot silently across the sky for 5 - 10 seconds."

eyewitness: "it was incredible... a huge, green ball... at first i though "shooting star", but it was definitely too big for that."

continue report: "pictures of 'the apparition" appeared on the internet relatively soon afterwards, eyewittnesses are discussing the cause for the lightball, from mecklenburg-vorpommern to nordrhein-westfalen emergency calls are sweeping in on police stations, many people fear that a plane might have crashed. but that's not the case - experts of the planetarium of hamburg think that a meteorite came down at itzehoe (north of hamburg), bur the exact location of impact is as of yet unknown".

so there you go, here's what german television has to say on the matter. pardon my lousy english if you will, this is just a quick-and-dirty translation, not too much time right now to look up some vocabulary that escaped me at the moment of writing this ;-)

Hey, there's the third thread! Funny that Germany is in the headlines, 'cause it was visible best in Holland.

Some very good pics in the thread I posted yesterday: www.abovetopsecret.com...

I should ask my Mother-in-Law about this... she's a Bremer.

If I read correctly they are handling it as a meteorite report?

Originally posted by draknoir2
I should ask my Mother-in-Law about this... she's a Bremer.

If I read correctly they are handling it as a meteorite report?

In Holland the National weather institute and several observatory confirmed it was a meteorite

[edit on 14-10-2009 by cappuccino]

Originally posted by cappuccino
In Holland the National weather institute and several observatory confirmed it was a meteorite

A meteorite is when a meteor (or fireball,or bolide) results in something reaching the ground.

So far nothing has been found, and there is no evidence that anything made it to the ground (although it looks like there is a distinct possibility that something may have), so until that time this is technically a meteor or fireball or bolide.

The previous 3 terms are different names for the luminous phenomena that we see when a meteoroid (a rock in space) enters our atmosphere.

Can a mod please close this and the other extra thread. We don't need 3 threads discussing the same event. Thanks!


[edit on 14-10-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.

Originally posted by cappuccino
In Holland the National weather institute and several observatory confirmed it was a meteorite

A meteorite is when a meteor (or fireball,or bolide) results in something reaching the ground.

So far nothing has been found, and there is no evidence that anything made it to the ground (although it looks like there is a distinct possibility that something may have), so until that time this is technically a meteor or fireball or bolide.

The previous 3 terms are different names for the luminous phenomena that we see when a meteoroid (a rock in space) enters our atmosphere.

Can a mod please close this and the other extra thread. We don't need 3 threads discussing the same event. Thanks!


[edit on 14-10-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

Ah ok, some English lessons. I did not know for sure if a meteor was the correct word in english. In my original thread from yesterday I called it a fireball, as it is called in the news here in holland. But indeed, I think this one can be closed.

The article says NOTHING about a UFO. An astronomer there said it sounds like people saw a meteor

reply to post by cappuccino


Just clarifying the terminology since "meteor" and "meteorite" mean different things.

Your English is very good by the way