Flashes, booms reported over Western Washington

seattlepi.nwsource.com...

Thursday, June 3, 2004 � Last updated 4:22 a.m. PT

Flashes, booms reported over Western Washington

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- Bright flashes and sharp booms were reported in the skies over the Puget Sound area early Thursday, and aviation officials said a meteor may have been the source.

An early report that a meteor might have hit near Chehalis, about 90 miles south of the city, turned out to be false, a University of Washington scientist who specializes in meteorites said.

Toby Smith, a lecturer in astronomy, told The Associated Press scientists were looking into the cause of the skybursts reported over a wide area about 2:40 a.m.

Witnesses along a 60-mile swath of the sound from near Tacoma to Whidbey Island and as far as 100 miles to the east near Ellensburg said the sky lit up brightly, and many also reported booming sounds as if from one or more explosions.

Officials at the National Weather Service ruled out any weather-related causes, and duty officers at the Federal Aviation Administration and the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station told The Associated Press they knew of no civilian or military airplane problems.

Civilian pilots reported seeing the flash from Ellensburg, east of the Cascade Range, said an FAA duty officer who did not give her name.



At Whidbey Island, Petty Officer Andrew Davis said he and other saw the skyburst.

"It made a pretty big bang," Davis said. "We thought it could maybe be a meteorite (a meteor that has struck Earth) or something."

A man who identified himself as University of Washington astronomy professor Bradley Hammermaster told KIRO Radio a team was being assembled to head for an area where the meteor was believed to have hit, but that call appeared to be a hoax, Smith said.

No one by the name of Hammermaster is known to the astronomy department, and the description given by the caller to the station of the object - an automobile-sized piece of a small car from a piece of the larger Trilene meteor - was clearly bogus, Smith added.

Just out of curiosity, could this have anything to do with the supposed June 19th or 20th event that is scheduled to happen this year? It seems to me like the pieces are starting to fit together. I am going to do some looking around at the last 24 hours of weather data for the area and see if what they are telling us on CNN (it was weather-realated) is true or not. I do not believe that this incident has anything to do with weather. I'll check back with everybody shortly.

......this is getting a little more interesting. nice touch!

Ok. I found a radar loop for Washington state. From what I see there is no sign of possible weather-related probabilities that the weather had anything to do with the flash. Something entirely irrelevent to this topic is that the Earth is in a solar wind stream from a massive coronal hole on the sun. This typically provides astronomers in high latitudes the opportunity to see auroras which consist of only light....not sound.

It's an interesting and timely development considering the comet scenario, Tenet resigns & King George II jets off to the old house of Europe. I am an island resident, didn't hear anything early this morning? I'm asking around to see if anyone else heard it. Obviously, the naval petty officer (Whidbey NAS?) is a witness. I've had a very uneasy feeling lately, usually no big deal, but like something big is coming, butterflies in the stomach, 'something's not right' kind of thing I felt back pre-wtc, only stronger? Can't be the coffee, I have cut way back to one cup per day.

This is also being reported in the Canadian media here:

www.theglobeandmail.com...

They are calling it a "skyburst".

I'm at work and have no time to look into this, but is there anyway this is related to the ISS being visible on the US west coast last night?

ISS-info

GLP again,

But in that site there's a forum with people who have claimed to have seen the "skybursts"...

Witnesses from Washington and British Columbia

[Edited on 3-6-2004 by TheBandit795]

Here it is showing seismic activity after 2.30 am...

www.pnsn.org...

And I know that there are members in the Seattle area... Has anyone here seen anything???

[Edited on 3-6-2004 by TheBandit795]

Yep...2:40 or so AM. Don't ask why I was up but I saw the "skyburst".
Actually I heard the boom, then felt the tremor with it, then saw a brilliant flash in the sky.

How big was it??? Did it light up the whole sky and turned "night as day" as those people described? Or just a regular lightning or spotlight kind of flash???

Well judging from your post, I guess you were indoors, and that the flash had to be there at least for a while for you to hear the booms and feel the rumble before seeing the flash...

(I sound like I'm advertising a wrestling match )

[Edited on 3-6-2004 by TheBandit795]

First, the "Aussie Bloke" is dismissed as a hox with it was.

But that doesn't explain these booms and flashes and it also doesn't explain the anomaly found in Antartica, but it was probably a satellite?

Originally posted by TheBandit795
How big was it??? Did it light up the whole sky and turned "night as day" as those people described? Or just a regular lightning or spotlight kind of flash???

No, it was bright. Lit up the whole sky. Not a downward light but more across. Like the borealis (if you have seen that) but brighter.

Originally posted by Illmatic67
First, the "Aussie Bloke" is dismissed as a hox with it was.

But that doesn't explain these booms and flashes and it also doesn't explain the anomaly found in Antartica, but it was probably a satellite?

ok..... huh?

Originally posted by TheBandit795
Well judging from your post, I guess you were indoors, and that the flash had to be there at least for a while for you to hear the booms and feel the rumble before seeing the flash...

No, I was outdoors actually. All the events for me happened within nano-seconds...boom, tremor, flash (that lingered just a bit) and then was gone.

The name of the alleged astronomer, Bradley Hammermaster, could also be considered a clue.

A popular fictional disaster novel of the 1970's was "Lucifer's Hammer," the name given to the asteroid that destroyed Earth's civilization. The big line in the novel by an astronomer was something like, "It will hit like...Lucifer's Hammer."

Hammermaster, of course, doesn't exist.

Robert Walker O'Neal
www.onealclan.com

Found an article with pictures of before and during the flah (from a parkinglot security camera)

www.komo4.com...

And another one with a video, (but unfortunately you have to be registered to see it, I haven't seen the video)...

www.nwcn.com...

You all, on the Drudgereport.com site they are saying that the Associated Press is saying that the meteor is all a hoax, and they mentioned this Bradley Hammermeister guy. Im new, and I have web tv so I can't really provide the link but its the one of the top stories in the middle column of drudgereport right now, (it's like 1:34 pm ct). WHAT is going on here? Its surpassing my knowledge at this point....WHO is doing this?

Originally posted by lily3214
You all, on the Drudgereport.com site they are saying that the Associated Press is saying that the meteor is all a hoax, and they mentioned this Bradley Hammermeister guy. Im new, and I have web tv so I can't really provide the link but its the one of the top stories in the middle column of drudgereport right now, (it's like 1:34 pm ct). WHAT is going on here? Its surpassing my knowledge at this point....WHO is doing this?

Well, whoever this guy is...I guess he said it was a meteor is a hoax. Ok. But what happened, the event itself is not. Hundreds of witnesses including cameras. They do not know the cause I guess, but that particular story is a hoax.