Yeah
Posted on 11/14/2005 10:08:29 PM PST by El Gato
About 8 PM CST, I was out getting my mail. I was facing southwest. The sky was mostly clear. I saw a very short flash, very white, against the houses I was facing. It seemed to be behind me, so I turned around, then facing northeast or north northeast, and then saw a very fat contrail or smoke trail, sort of a yellowish off white with the center portion having some color, red, orange, and maybe a little green
The streak, whatever it was, was about 30 or 40 degrees above the horizon, with the left (west) portion being higher than the right (east) portion.
I live just a few miles from the artillery impact range at Ft. Hood, but there was no sound with this, nor was it like a flare, which burns for some time. I've been hearing artillery or tank fire for a week or so at night. This was like a flashbulb (or strobe for you youngsters). The contrail didn't last long, or at least stay lit and thus visible, maybe 10-20 seconds.
Ft. Hood is about 60 miles north of Austin or 100 miles or so southwest of Dallas/Ft. Worth.
Kind of weird, and I could find any mention of it anywhere on FR or elsewhere.
Assuming it was something, debris or meteorite, coming in from "out there", and assuming it was at say 120,000 feet (which would be about right IIRC) it could have been as far as 400 miles away.
It was likely a meteorite incinerating in the upper atmosphere. Everything you describe seems to be in keeping with that phenomenon.
I'm in NY, so no, but appreciate the info as I watch the contrails here in upstate.
Maybe the new spy plane, Aurora?
When I lived in DC I saw a metorite fall, It a car a few states away. If looked much like you are describing.
I can't remember the name of the meteor showers that we are supposed to be experiencing but a meteor is likely what you saw.
There was an article last week in the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer informing us that we should be keeping our eyes on the night sky for some meteor displays.
YES. Garland, TX. I was walking the dogs and the ground suddenly lit up green. I looked up and saw a smoke trail that quickly dissipated.
Yeah
Ping. Y'all see anything?
Yeah, about 11:30 towards the northeast, I saw a flash & explosion...then deathly silence.....it was Roy Williams taking the game winning interception for our Boyz in Philly....
I live in the southeast, and I did not see what you are referring to. However, for the first time in a while, I took some time tonight to gaze up at the moon, and I noticed a HUGE halo around it that took up a significant portion of my field of vision.
Pardon me!.... (guess those bean burritos got to me a little more then I thought!)
The colors you describe are probably the result of a Doppler effect, going from green to yellow to red as it flew past you. Had you caught it earlier, you might even have seen a little blue
Article Published: Saturday, November 05, 2005
Taurid meteor shower puts on big show in Alaska
By Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Alisha Klingenmeyer of Anchorage recalled spotting an orange-red fireball streaking across the sky as she drove north at about 8 p.m. Thursday.
Paul Vos was watching a movie with his wife and son at their home in Hope at about 8:30 p.m. the same night when all three saw an arc of light over the mountains in the southern sky.
"It had a real long tail, kind of a silvery white, and from a real perspective it was about the size of a large softball or basketball or soccer ball," Vos said.
A spectacular sky show is playing over Alaska this month as Earth passes through the fiery remnants of a comet.
Fireballs and bright streaks of light seen in the sky around Anchorage Thursday were part of the Taurid meteor shower, the annual spray of comet dust over the Earth's upper atmosphere, according to a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist.
Residents of Fairbanks also saw the meteors, said Neal Brown, director of the Alaska Space Grant Program, an educational organization.
Meteor showers, mistakenly known as shooting stars, occur when Earth's atmosphere collides with space debris, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Often, it's debris that has come loose from a comet's body after some of the comet's ice has evaporated during its passage around the sun, said John Chappelow, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute.
The dust particles are usually tiny, sometimes microscopic, although they can be the size of large rocks. No matter the particle size, the chemical reaction produces a blaze of light and sometimes vivid colors.
Regular meteor showers, such as the Taurids, Leonids and Perseids, are named for the constellations from which they appear to emerge.
The Taurids arrive in late October and early November off the comet Encke, discovered in 1786.
This year's Taurids, whose weeklong peak of meteor activity NASA said would start today, were expected to be brighter and more frequent than usual, Chappelow said.
"We're running through the (comet's) orbit, which is like a flow, an orbiting ellipse of debris, and we're passing through an especially dense knot of this stuff," he said.
The better viewing is generally after midnight, and the best time is in the vicinity of 3 a.m., said Don Martins, chair of the UAA Department of Physics and Astronomy.
___
Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113%257E26794%257E3119412,00.html?search=filter
Sounds like a meteorite or maybe a satellite reentring the atmoshphere. I seen that happen once myself and later found out it was some old satellite.
LOL! "Those magnificent men in their flying machines.... they go uppity-up-up, they go down-ditty, down, down...."
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