First pictures coming in now....
Posted on 12/18/2004 6:58:31 PM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
Indonesian radio today reported mass sightings of an unidentified object that appeared to fall to earth west of Jakarta, followed by the sound of a strong explosion.
Dozens of callers aired by the ElShinta radio spoke of a fast whitish object crossing the sky towards the west of Jakarta and a big explosion followed by what they said sounded like an echo.
The sound of the explosion could be heard in Tanggerang, just west of Jakarta, the southern suburb of Depok and as far away as Bogor, some 60 km south of the capital.
But police in Tanggerang, where many of the callers said might have been where the object had fallen, said they had no report of any fallen object and that police were still investigating the origin of the explosion.
Muji Harjoto, an expert from the Boscha astronomical observatory in Bandung, West Java, told ElShinta that there were no reports of any spatial objects crashing.
AFP
[World News]: Jakarta, Dec. 18 : "The US State Department warned today that terrorists were planning more attacks against Western targets in Indonesia over Christmas and New Year, and reiterated advice to its citizens not to travel to the country.
According to The News, "the department reminds Americans that the terrorist threat in Indonesia continues and may increase over the December-January holiday period,'' according to a statement of state department on web site."
"Reports indicate that terrorists are planning attacks against a wide variety of targets.'', it added.(ANI)
Australians are also being warned not to go to Indonesia during the holidays.
"Sun-Herald (Sydney, AU), by Kerry-Anne Walsh Original Article ''You've been warned,'' declared Attorney-General Philip Ruddock yesterday, in a last-minute plea for Australian holiday-makers heading to Indonesia for Christmas to stay home. Australians were still boarding planes yesterday to holiday spots on the archipelago, despite the Government's warning that terrorists were poised to strike. /break/ ''we have moved in Indonesia to a situation of extreme vulnerability: an extreme risk assessment means an attack is imminent.''
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1103424619831_12/?hub=World
Loud noise heard in Jakarta, meteor suspected
Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A loud noise several witnesses said sounded like an explosion was heard in parts of the Indonesian capital early Sunday.
News reports said an object that might have been a meteor was seen flashing across the sky above the capital but did not make clear if it had hit the Earth.
Several callers to el-Shinta radio station reported a noise that sounded like an explosion at around 7:30 a.m. local time in western districts of Jakarta.
Metro TV station reported a large object, believed to be a meteor, was seen falling toward the Earth at around the same time, also to the west of the city. The report did not say whether the object had hit the ground.
Police said they were investigating but had no report of any bombings in or near the capital, or of any objects falling from the sky.
No other details were immediately available.
Police have been on high alert in Indonesia in recent days after several foreign governments reported Islamic militants, blamed for a series of attacks in recent years, were planning more bombings.
Reports of meteor fallen to earth in Jakarta
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP): A loud noise that several witnesses said resembled an explosion was heard in parts of Jakarta early Sunday. Media reports said a meteor had fallen close to the capital.
Several callers to el-Shinta radio station reported a noise that sounded like an explosion at around 7.30 a.m in western districts of Jakarta. Metro TV station reported that a large object, suspected to be a meteor, had fallen to earth, also to the west of the city.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/12/19/latest/20201Reportsof&sec=latest
let's hope its a meteor - and not an AQ missile of some kind.
..."...Australian holiday-makers heading to Indonesia for Christmas to stay home."...
No infidels welcomed in Indonesia.
ping
It's possible. One of the Geminids? (annual meteor shower in Dec)
Correct ... could easily have been one of them. I wonder how bit it was?
N.Korea Could Test Long-Range Missile Any Time - U.S.
Dec 17, 3:05 PM (ET)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea could flight test at any time a ballistic missile potentially capable of reaching parts of the United States with a nuclear-weapon-sized payload, the State Department's top arms control official said on Friday.
Making the case for President Bush's drive to build a missile shield days after a failed test of the system, Stephen Rademaker, assistant secretary of state for arms control, said North Korea was pushing plans to develop its ocean-leaping, multiple-stage Taepo Dong 2 missile.
"This missile could be flight tested at any time," he told a conference in a congressional office building sponsored by the American Foreign Policy Council, a private research group.
A critic of the U.S. missile-defense plans, however, accused the Bush administration of playing up a North Korean threat "whether or not one exists" as a way to sell the shield program for which it plans to spend more than $50 billion over the next five years.
"They're not going to let technical problems or a less-severe threat prevent them from pursuing" missile defense, said Jon Wolfsthal, an expert on deadly weapons at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The Central Intelligence Agency has said that the Taepo-2 "may" be ready for testing. The report was in an unclassified report to Congress that covered developments to the end of last year.
North Korea's Aug. 31, 1998, test over Japan of an earlier-generation Taepo Dong 1 helped set the stage for Bush's drive to field a missile shield as soon as technologically feasible. Pyongyang has stuck to a voluntary moratorium on flight tests since the launch.
Bush ordered the Pentagon two years ago to have the basic elements of a missile defense system on alert by the end of this month. The Pentagon's prime contractor for the ground-based system is Boeing Co..
However, technical problems -- including a flight test aborted this week when the interceptor shut itself off in its silo -- appear to have delayed a declaration that the system was ready to go on alert.
The setup is initially designed to counter ballistic missiles that could be fired from North Korea and tipped with chemical, nuclear or germ warheads.
If North Korea were to use a third stage on its Taepo Dong 2 booster rocket, as did in the 1998 Taepo Dong 1 test, "such a three-stage missile could deliver a several hundred kilogram payload up to 15,000 kilometers (9,300 miles)," enough to hit parts of the United States, Rademaker said.
Such a missile also had sufficient range to hit all of Europe, he said.
Experts generally says a nuclear warhead built by a new nuclear state would weigh about 1,100 pounds (500 kg). Some suspect the North may have made progress on miniaturization with clandestine help from A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist who secretly headed a global nuclear network.
Rademaker said the North was "nearly self-sufficient" in developing and producing ballistic missiles.
Iran, the other member of what Bush branded "axis of evil" states along with pre-war Iraq and North Korea, also is working on space-launch capabilities along with its suspected nuclear weapons program, he said.
Iranian intercontinental-range ballistic missile systems could be ready for flight-testing in the "middle to latter-part of the decade," he said.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20041217/2004-12-17T200534Z_01_N17264117_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-ARMS-MISSILE-KOREA-DC.html
bttt
Now is lunchtime here. 12:17pm
Dozens of callers aired by the ElShinta radio spoke of a fast whitish object crossing the sky towards the west of Jakarta and a big explosion followed by what they said sounded like an echo.
Revelation 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Hmmm, isn't the bottomless pit where allah dwells?
Regular meteor showers generally don't produce the sort of audible booms or actual meteorites hitting the ground.
Those are caused by basically random meteors unassociated with showers.
I agree. I was watching them the other night.
First pictures coming in now....
Regular meteor showers generally don't produce the sort of audible booms or actual meteorites hitting the ground.
Those are caused by basically random meteors unassociated with showers.
meteor showers are caused when the earth passes through the debris cloud left along the orbit of earth crossing comets. Virtually all of that debris, probably 99.99% is dust like in nature and it is that dust that we see burning up as meteors. However, even .01% of larger debris from such comets will include a significant risk to the Earth and probably accounts for a large fraction of impact events on Earth.
The Tunguska 'event' is almost certainly an air burst of such a comet fragment. The explosion coincided with the peak of the Beta Taurid meteor shower. Calculations indicate that the object that exploded and caused the damage was coming 'out of the sun' along the path of the Beta Taurid debris stream in it's orbit around the sun at that point in the source comet's orbit (Comet Encke).
No doubt there are "random meteors unassociated with showers" but whenever we are in a meteor shower, in the debris field from a comet, there is an increased chance of a larger comet fragment being in that particular batch of "stuff."
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