Comet/Asteroid/Aliens/Meteor/???

[RAJAH235]

Hi all you people in S.A. & N.T.
What did you see tonite? Reports of strange object travelling north across S.A. at slow rate of knots, fairly high in tonites sky.
Looked like a 'fireworks type display' as one lady reported. All the pretty colours...
Anyone see it?
:D L.

[ballaratdragons]

Where did you hear about this report Laurie?

Those in SA or NT, please explain.

[RAJAH235]

Where else, but THE ABC. National/local radio. Was a news item at 9 or 10pm thru till now.
:ship2: l.

[ballaratdragons]

April Fools Joke maybe?

[RAJAH235]

After 12noon? don't think so. L
Ken, tune to local ABC radio now.They just had a guy from Perth Ob. on. Apparently it travelled from the SW (poss. eastern part of WA) towards the NT. Centre. Some report it hit the earth. Bit iffy. Others saw it travelling for about 1 minute. Probably an 'Earth Grazer' like I saw 2 christmas's ago. Mine lasted for 35 seconds, travelling from west to east & covered about 120 degrees of sky. It disappeared into Antares (almost) at 5 degrees above the eastern horizon. It was like molten lava, with lots of material burning off it. REALLY SPECTACULAR. L.

[ballaratdragons]

Found this on ABC website:

<b><i>Stargazers attempt to identify UFO</i></b>
<i>The Perth Observatory is attempting to figure out if an unidentified object seen in the skies of Western Australian and the Northern Territory earlier tonight, was space junk or a large meteorite.

Astronomer Peter Birch says the unidentified object was tracked from the south coast of Western Australia, to north of Alice Springs.

He says from the reports he has received it was most likely a satellite re-entering the atmosphere.

"That of a large burning object in the sky, flaring getting bright, then getting dim, then getting bright again, with a tail out behind it, which is a fairly common meteor type description, but the thing that is a bit different from a meteor description is that it's been seen over such a large area and for such a long time," he said.

Alice Springs police say they received more than 20 reports of the unidentified object tracking across central Australian skies.

Police say most of the calls came from Alice Springs, but some extended 320 kilometres to the south-west at Yulara and 170 kilometres north at Ti Tree.

Alice Springs resident Fiona Higgins witnessed the rare event.

"I saw what I thought was fireworks and I thought, that's strange because I didn't hear any bang like you would with fireworks and it was going horizontal not vertical and it was the most phenomenal thing with all the pretty colours," she said.</i>