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Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Explosive fireball said to shake Earth
'The noise was so loud, for a moment I thought I had turned deaf'
Posted: January 12, 2005
8:45 p.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
 Was it a meteor that slammed into India? (Illustration by Leonard Wikberg III, courtesy ScienceData.net) |
Villagers in India are in a state of shock and local officials baffled after a fireball was seen crashing Tuesday night, causing a massive explosion that "shook the Earth."
"I saw a huge ball of fire in the air," farmhouse caretaker told the Mumbai Mid Day. "It raced down to the Earth so fast that before I could do anything, my house shook and all my utensils came crashing down."
More than half a dozen villages near the towns of Khopoli, Uran and Panvel felt the impact. Locals were said to run out of their homes and remain outside for fear of them collapsing.
"The noise was so loud, for a moment I thought I had turned deaf. It was almost like a huge bomb blast," said resident R. Chaitanya.
More than 80 calls about the event flooded one local police office in Navi Mumbai.
 Ball of fire spotted over circled pond in Apata village near Khopoli (courtesy: Mumbai Mid Day) |
According to the paper, "an almost twister-like effect was also detected in the jungle areas of Bazruddin, Wavochi and Karoshi, which saw trees swaying."
Air-traffic controllers say all planes have been accounted for, and the Mumbai Meteorological Department ruled out any asteroid or meteorite event.
Officials with the Indian Space Research Organisation also dismiss it was satellite debris.
"We have only two satellites in the orbit, and we have ruled out damage to either," said an ISRO spokesman.
Officer D.D. Bharsat in the village of Bharapada told Mid Day he saw fire and smoke, and the impact sent leaves and other articles from the ground circling into the air.
But police reportedly have still not found the precise location where the blast occurred.
"Our men are traveling from village to village to find out the exact spot of the unidentified explosion," Superintendent Dnyaneshwar Phadtare of the Raigad Police said. "Many have heard the explosion but nobody has yet been able to pinpoint the spot."
The event comes on the heels of a recent spate of mysterious celestial events not only in Asia, but in the Western Hemisphere as well.
As WorldNetDaily reported Saturday, residents of Chino, Calif., saw a fireball falling from the sky last week, and a neighborhood shed ignited moments later.
 Image taken from infrared video of UFOs |
Last May, the Mexican air force released video footage of 11 unidentified flying objects that were only visible via an infrared camera.
The objects reportedly flew around a military surveillance plane.
Jamie Maussan, a journalists and UFO enthusiast, told reporters the objects seemed "intelligent" because at one point they changed direction and surrounded the plane that was chasing them.
"They were invisible to the eye but they were there, there is no doubt about it. They had mass, they had energy and they were moving about," Maussan said after showing a 15-minute video.
"We are not alone! This is so weird," one of the pilots can be heard yelling, Reuters reported. The plane's crew had just switched on the infrared camera after first picking up the objects by radar.
In the past year, there have been numerous additional sightings of fireballs, UFOs and mysterious lights hovering in the sky.
The strange circumstances were reported in Iran, China, Indonesia and Australia.
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