Midwest megameteor makes media madness

blogs.discovermagazine.com...

By now you’ve probably heard of the extremely bright fireball over Utah last Wednesday, proving once again that really cool stuff happens when I’m on travel and can’t write about it. Worse, it was seen from Denver, which means I might’ve had a shot at seeing it myself.

Sigh.

Anyway, this meteor was so bright it overexposed security cameras, turned night into day, and cast obvious shadows on the ground. This video shows several different views of it:

Whoa.

The coolest thing about these videos is, to me, the way the shadows of objects move rapidly around as the meteor flashes across the sky. I describe this very thing in the opening vignette of the asteroid impact chapter of my book Death from the Skies! The video is pretty much exactly as I imagined it would be. Yikes.

Of course, not everyone thinks this was just a chunk of rock burning up harmlessly in our atmosphere. Because, after all, why assume it was a natural event that occurs quite often, when you can add layers of nonsense and conspiracy to it? Fark alerted me to the idea that this was actually a nuclear missile shot down over the US, despite the video, pictures, and eyewitness accounts completely contradicting the idea that this was anything other than a meteor. But for some people, facts won’t get in the way of a good story!

Anyway, while spectacular, the Earth is probably subjected to meteors like this several times a year. As I have said before, now that we have security cameras and phones with video, we’ll be seeing more and more of videos like this, which is a good thing: it’ll make people more aware of the sky. I’m all for that!

Looks like a meteor to me, but a fairly large one at that. Here's the conspiracy version of events:

Nuclear Attack On Denver Fails, US Air Force Explodes Missile In Sky

Russian Space Forces are reporting today that the United States Air Force has shot down a 1 Kiloton nuclear armed cruise missile targeting the Denver International Airport in the State of Colorado that was fired from an as yet ‘unidentified’ aircraft able to penetrate the North American air defense system after US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) computer and communications systems was ‘shut down’, an ‘event’ eerily reminiscent to the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Immediately following this attack the Commander of military forces protecting North America ordered an ‘immediate review’ of America’s air defense systems, though in his public statements he failed to inform the American people about this attack.

So powerful was the explosion of this nuclear armed cruise missile over the skies of the Western parts of the United States that there are reports of it being seen, and heard in Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. The US Spaceweather.Com news site has also posted a photo [3rd photo left] taken of the debris field left by this explosion in the skies over Colorado, though to all of these Western propaganda reports it is being blamed on a meteorite. Spaceweather.Com is also confirming the Russian Space Forces estimate of the size of this explosion as being in the 1 kiloton range.

The targeting, by what are believed to be forces in the United States loyal to President Obama, of the Denver International Airport, these reports continue, is an ‘expected’ outcome of Obama’s ‘life and death’ battle against both the powerful Federal Reserve Banking System and its ‘Global enforcer’, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as this airport has long been rumored to be one of the main evacuation centers for the elite ruling classes in the US intent upon the destruction of their own Nation.

No need to worry: it says reported by Sorcha Faal.

[edit on 22-11-2009 by john124]

When I saw the headline written as the Midwest and than they said Utah, the first they that came to mind was-MIDWEST? Utah is in the Pacific Northwest. The midwest is WI, MN, IL, IO, etc.

Right than I said, if they cannot get the headline right, why even bother to read the article?

Yeah, I was expecting this to be another meteor similar to the Utah one, since it said Midwest. They were trying too hard for the alliteration and threw geography out the window.

Originally posted by endisnighe
Utah is in the Pacific Northwest.

Looks kinda in the middle of the western part of the US. But then again maybe i'm wrong.

Fascinating stuff. I wonder where it went - I mean, if it was big enough to make all that light, was it big enough to hit the earth?

I don't think this was a nuke that got shot down.

This is the blogger's excuse:

[For those complaining about my title, I said "midwest" because the meteor was seen as far east as Colorado, which sits on the west/midwest border, and, duh, I needed a word that started with "M".]

Still a cool video though, and that's worth watching.

Originally posted by chiron613
Fascinating stuff. I wonder where it went - I mean, if it was big enough to make all that light, was it big enough to hit the earth?

I don't think this was a nuke that got shot down.

Usually in cases like this, no. Not so much a case of it not being big enough (although obviously size can matter allot when you start getting really big objects), but that objects like these are not very dense, and they are often weak/fractured, so almost as soon as they slam into our atmosphere at high speed, they break up/explode.

Kinetic energy (mainly from its relative velocity) is converted into a blinding flash of light basically, in a massive release of energy similar in size to a small nuclear blast.

Our atmosphere becomes very dense somewhere around 40-50km in height, and most asteroidal material is slowed down rapidly by this altitude. Anything surviving will stop emitting light and fall to the ground unseen a few minutes later, and probably traveling a couple of hundred mph at best.

This one was perhaps 1-5 meters across, and not that uncommon. In most cases they end up as dust , and pebble sized pieces scattered on the ground. See this thread about a similar event at the start of the year where meteorites were recovered.

I agree, there's no evidence to suggest a nuke. It looks "just" like any other bright meteor. If it was a nuclear missile being intercepted it would likely be no where near as bright, since you can't set off a nuke by accident.

The person suggesting a nuke probably does not realize that a 2 m rock traveling at around 25 km/s can easily have the KE equivelent to that of a nuclear warhead. Edit to add: In this case I suspect the object may have been up to 2x that speed. Usually they are not quite that fast.



[edit on 22-11-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

Man, this is one of the best youtube video's I've ever seen.

I wish I could have seen that, would have been amazing.


Why does America always get the cool stuff?

reply to post by john124

Midwest megameteor makes media madness

Wow, try saying that three times in a row, really fast, lol!

Seriously though, that is some insane footage! I'm pretty sure that had I seen that, I would have thought the world was ending! Fascinating stuff... and scary! Wish I had seen it.

[edit on 11/22/2009 by gemineye]

Very nice.

I Live in utah. But i didnt even notice. It would be great to see more stuff like this.

Originally posted by Traveler 291
It would be great to see more stuff like this.

It's not too hard, although obviously they are not quite as big and bright usually, but seeing them in real life is even more amazing:

The Perseid meteor shower Aug. 12/13
The Leonid meteor shower Nov. 17/18
The Geminid meteor shower Dec. 13/14

Keep an eye on the space exploration forum closer to the time, and you'll usually find at least one post if there is an upcoming major shower.

Update!

Meteor may have landed in Area 52

Scientists have evidence that the massive meteor that turned the night sky into day for two seconds Wednesday night might have exploded in the atmosphere above the reputed Area 52—an extremely dangerous, mysterious patch of Utah desert.

Patrick Wiggins, NASA Ambassador to Utah and Robert Matson, senior scientist for Applied Science International, believe the cosmic rock blew up as it burned through the atmosphere above Tooele County, based on interpretations of recorded seismic activity information and the meteor’s perceived trajectory. The meteor pieces would’ve landed within a mile of where the meteor exploded -- but unfortunately, that means they would have landed in the Dugway Proving Ground—an area of the western Utah desert, bigger than Rhode Island, where the U.S. Army tests chemical, biological and radioactive warfare, an area that is rumored to be the new Area 51.

Source: dailyutahchronicle.com

It would be a sin to not try and find this meteorite when pieces of it are probably just sitting on the desert floor, waiting for someone to find them. Although there are many samples of meteors recovered by scientists now, meteorites that are recovered and also photographed whilst entering our atmosphere are few and far between.

It's rare to have data about where the object came from (it's orbit), as well as an actual sample, and could potentially tell us many things about NEOs and the impact threat that we are faced with.

I hope at least someone is allowed to search for fragments. Surely the military could do so if no one else is allowed!?

One inaccuracy I should point out from the article, is that it was probably not a Leonid, unlike the article says. The Leonid radiant is likely in the wrong place for this meteor to be a candidate for the Leonid meteor shower.

Originally posted by Traveler 291
Very nice.

I Live in utah. But i didnt even notice. It would be great to see more stuff like this.

I live on the Wyoming / Utah border. Didn't see crap either. It was probably visible from here too.