Noisy Meteor!!!!!! ????

[Night Owl]

I saw and heard one back in 1981 at 11:55PM Christmas eve (took notes). I heard a noise like a big jet flying over under full power so looked up and WOW! There was no big bright burning head, but it was massive, as it appeared as big or bigger than a full moon in size. It was shedding dense clouds of swirling red sparks, no green or blue fire etc, just swirling red sparks flowing like a bow wave and turbulent in the wake, much like a campfire burning in a strong wind. It also traveresed half the sky in about 5 to 7 seconds from west 45 degrees from the horizon to east. It never exploded, it just gradually diminished its shedding of sparks and the noise also faded with it until it disappeared. It didn't even leave an ionization trail. All I could put it down to was a massive 'dirty snowball', with some dust and junk leaving the sparks as the head melted, and that it had grazed the atmosphere and then went back on its merry way, with a bit less velocity! The friend I was with and myself were convinced had it hit the ground there would have been one hell of a bang and a huge crater somewhere.

I never witnessed this one, but it is an interesting tale. The grandfather of a friend of mine once told me his father, back in the 1870s, near Creswick in Victoria, was walking back from a hard days farming at dusk, and on the horizon to the west they both saw a 'new' star appear, and gradually get brighter, then bigger, and then it got so big and bright it scared them, then it hit the ground close enough to them to see it gouge a trench four foot wide and over thirty feet long in the soft earth, and then ricochet up and dissapear into the sky in the darkening eastern sky. They picked themselves up, had a look at the hole, and went home.

[caleb]

Originally Posted by Night Owl

I saw and heard one back in 1981 at 11:55PM Christmas eve (took notes). I heard a noise like a big jet flying over under full power so looked up and WOW! There was no big bright burning head, but it was massive, as it appeared as big or bigger than a full moon in size. It was shedding dense clouds of swirling red sparks, no green or blue fire etc, just swirling red sparks flowing like a bow wave and turbulent in the wake, much like a campfire burning in a strong wind. It also traveresed half the sky in about 5 to 7 seconds from west 45 degrees from the horizon to east. It never exploded, it just gradually diminished its shedding of sparks and the noise also faded with it until it disappeared. It didn't even leave an ionization trail. All I could put it down to was a massive 'dirty snowball', with some dust and junk leaving the sparks as the head melted, and that it had grazed the atmosphere and then went back on its merry way, with a bit less velocity! The friend I was with and myself were convinced had it hit the ground there would have been one hell of a bang and a huge crater somewhere.

I never witnessed this one, but it is an interesting tale. The grandfather of a friend of mine once told me his father, back in the 1870s, near Creswick in Victoria, was walking back from a hard days farming at dusk, and on the horizon to the west they both saw a 'new' star appear, and gradually get brighter, then bigger, and then it got so big and bright it scared them, then it hit the ground close enough to them to see it gouge a trench four foot wide and over thirty feet long in the soft earth, and then ricochet up and dissapear into the sky in the darkening eastern sky. They picked themselves up, had a look at the hole, and went home.

sure it wasn't the 70's..... wacky tobaci

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by caleb

sure it wasn't the 70's..... wacky tobaci

Classic!

[h0ughy (David)]

Ken Dr Colin Keay is very much alive but no longer at Uni of Newcastle as he is retired. here are a few links to articles explaining his theory

http://www.ips.gov.au/Educational/1/1/1
http://www.ips.gov.au/Educational/1/1/2
http://www.meteorobs.org/maillist/msg20622.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast26nov_1.htm
http://www.gefsproject.org/electrophones/

if you like I can get you in contact with him via email.

[MrB (Simon)]

Sorry, kinda long but hopefully entertaining enough:
I too have 'heard' a bolide.

I think it was either 1993 or 1994 or maybe even 1995.... somewhere around there anyway!
I was outside, mindlessly stargazing and getting a breath of cool air on a summer night, as I do almost every night before I hit the sack. Seconds later I climbed into bed and was just about to close my eyes when I heard a popping/crackling sound, wondered what it was so sat up and looked out my open window.
The whole scene was bathed in a bright greenish glow that kinda pulsated and flashed irregularly.
About 5 to 10 seconds later it was all over, I was confused for a while but convinced myself it must have been an electrical fault,(Above ground power poles here) even tho the amount of light didn't sit comfortably in my mind.
I looked at my watch and it was only a few seconds after 2am. Thought that was a pretty cool coincidence.(yeah sure I remember that but not the year!)
But the light just didn't seem right, then I realised the bright glow went right out to the horizon... I lived on the beach then and Penguin island - which is maybe 3k away - was brightly lit, more so than with a full moon. What could produce so much light?

I was just laying there thinking about it when there was an extremely deep, almost subsonic, powerfull(but not loud) boom that rattled my bedroom window. By now I was getting kinda spooked but with some more thought I decided it must have been a meteor.
I started kicking myself for not staying out and stargazing for just a min longer!

Sure enough it was the cover story on the morning paper and the evening news which was full of eye-witness stories from truckies and security guards etc. There were even people who told they were woken by stuff falling on their roofs, while flashing chunks of rock to the camera.

Still pissed that I missed seeing it.

It happened to me again at a star party, was manually guiding a film camera, when suddenly I was casting one hell of a shadow!
Lasted a good 4 seconds, accompanied by many screams and hoots and cheers... ofcourse all this happened behind me! Grrrrrr.
Don't remember hearing anything of that one.

Again, maybe 2003/04, on a stinkin' hot night with all my windows open, was just lying there staring out the window when suddenly everything was lit extremely brightly for a second. I waited for the thunder... and thought, 'was that light a kinda greenish tinge?'
The thunder never came, so I wandered outside and the sky was clear from horizon to horizon! D'OH!


I did see one tho, during the day, maybe around sunset at the latest.
Was probably about 1990-ish in a car with my brother and his mate. We all saw a huge fireball in the north sky, maybe 30deg up from the horizon, streaking from west to east and crossing easily half the sky before splitting into two. The trail it left looked like a forked snake tongue, pretty speccy.