Did anyone see what dropped out of the sky in northern ca. 5pmish 11-7-9

Hello all, I was just hoping someone else in northern California saw what just dropped out of the sky this evening right before 5pm. I was driving home from work on I 80 when my friend who was with me saw something fairly big falling and pointed in time for me to see it. Now I only saw it for a few seconds but what I saw seems a little odd to me. The object seemed oblong not round, almost like a greatly over inflated football. What seemed odd to me was that it was flying sideways to what I would think it should. I mean, using the football as an example, that it wasn't flying aerodynamicaly like a football but it was falling sideways. Now if this were the case I would think it would spin and right itself so it was aerodynamic naturally but it kept completely steady. I didn't even notice the slightest wobble.

Now my friend who was with me had a much better view and he said it seemed to sort of explode right before it hit the tree line. But he descrides it as blowing out to the sides not down in its general path which also seemed odd to me.

One last thing the color was bright whithish orange what I noticed was that it seemed to be the same color as the sunset which would almost denote a reflective surface and the shine it had seemed to be more of just that, a shine, not fire or the intense heat you see on object coming through our atmoshphere.

Well thats it I was just hoping someone else saw it and maybe had a better perpective on it. I don't doubt that it will probably just end up being another meteor however as I said a couple things seemed odd so I wanted to find out what was seen.

There are numerous meteor showers active at this time of year, not to mention near constant bombardment from small asteroids, and your account is fairly consistent with seeing a bright meteor.

However, it sounds more like some sort of a reflection you both saw, since the direction your friend saw does not match up with what you saw.

Without more details it's hard to say what it might have been.

If it was a bright meteor, it's likely other people saw it, and it will almost certainly be reported, so lets wait and see...

Yes I was just reading that appearently there were warnings givien out today that we are to expect meteors falling due to a comet trail. I would assume that must be what I saw I also read a report it was seen in the bay area about 300 miles away.
My friend and I both saw the same thing he just had better positioning due to a mounttainrange it went behind that cut it off from my view early. So while the angle it was at in decent seemed odd to me it must be normal for something of that size at that velocity

My wife and I saw this exact same thing here in Sacramento, CA. We were in the spa and had just watched a satellite go by, then wammo, this huge fireball goes across the sky, then blows up into little fire balls. It was a very bright and slow moving shooting star, it wasn't even fully dark yet but it lit up the sky. It was near Cassiopea, so dont think it was a Leonid.

reply to post by salsaking


If it was "slow moving", that would cross Leonids of the list of possibilities, along with most cometary sources as I said above. Also, for you to be able to see meteors belonging to a specific shower in the sky, the radiant of the shower in question has to be close to, or above the horizon where you are. In your case, that does not happen till around 11:30 PM. Before that you could not have seen any Leonids.

The fact that you saw it near Cassiopeia in it's self is not grounds to dismiss it as not a member of the Leonids shower. A Leonid is not a Leonid because it is seen in or close to Leo, but because it travels away from the Leonid radiant. Where it starts or ends can help to identify it as being a Leonid or not, but Leonids can appear almost anywhere in the sky once the Leonid radiant is well above the horizon.

There is a chance that it may have been a Taurid though, since the radiant is close to the horizon at that time, but it's probably more likely that you saw some random asteroidal material entering the atmosphere.

Without accurate coordinates of the start/end positions of the meteor, as well as knowing the length and speed, it's hard to identify a meteor with any real certainty, even if it is a member of a meteor shower. Learning where the radiant is at any given time, and having a knowledge of the stars/constellations so as you can identify it there and then, or plotting the meteor on a star map is the best way to identify meteors with any degree of certainty.



[edit on 8-11-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

Spaceweather.com is now reporting this event, and confirming that it was a fireball.

The fireball may have been a piece of periodic Comet 2P/Encke. Right now, Earth is passing through a stream of debris from the comet, and this is causing the annual Taurid meteor shower, which peaks between Nov. 5th and 12th. The display usually produces no more than about 5 meteors per hour, but what it lacks in number, it makes up for in dazzle. Taurids tend to be fireballs, bright enough to be seen even in twilight skies. At the time of the Bay Area fireball, the constellation Taurus was rising in the east, so the fireball's identification as a Taurid seems probable, albeit not certain.

I still think a small asteroid is a more likely possibility, but we will have to wait and see

There is also a photograph of the train it left behind (looks like it was taken after some time since it's quite distorted!).