3 foot block of ice falls in Oakland

Greetings...

My mother came up to me and told me that she heard on the news about a three foot chunk of ice that hit a park in Berkeley. She also said there was a report of one that was in Spain also. I actually went online and found this report:

Mercury News

OAKLAND, Calif. - Even the experts are having trouble explaining a solid block of ice that fell from the sky, crashed into earth and left behind a three-foot hole in the grass.

The ice fell at Bushrod Park in Oakland early Saturday when homeowner Jacek Purat of Berkeley was waiting nearby to show apartments to prospective renters.

"It was totally amazing. ... I saw this flash, like a streak. Then I saw this explosion, like a big boom! I came over and it (the field) was all covered with ice. Some were this big," Purat said, making a head-size circle with his two hands.

also: History of Ice falls

I looked further and found this term: Megacryometeors

Any more feedback on this matter will be most appreciated...God Bless

Uh, never heard of it, but I found another source of info on it by searching Google Scholar.

tierra.rediris.es...

Aren't these mostly expelled frozen faeses from passenger planes?

I believe Charles Fort refered to these as FAFROTSKIES (things that FAll FROm The SKIES. This has been occuring for hundreds of years. The 'waste from aircraft' theory has been bandied about by authorities, in many instances this is not the case. Ask any commercial airline pilot about it. It is illegal to dump waste while in flight. Accidental dumpings and leakages are what many of these falls are blamed on, but what about falls documented before the inception of aeroplanes?

fafrotskies:
Acronym from the phrase: fallen from the sky. Many theories have been presented to account for objects that seem to "rain" down from the heavens such as whirlwinds, tornadoes and even waterspouts. These natural phenomena may account for deposits of cinders, sand or dust. However, true fafrotskies events have three notable characteristics which directly oppose these natural phenomena theories. 1. Rains of fafrotskies indicate the point of origin of the rain to be the very uppermost levels of the atmosphere or from space. 2. Absolute lack of associated debris or material. 3. The fafrotskies are uniform in size and in the case of animals only one species is found. It appears that some type of sorting occurs with true fafrotskies. Waving Alien

Sky Falls



[edit on 10-4-2006 by Beelzebubba]

Yea the chunks of ice from airplanes are blue becouse of the chemical they use.

Originally posted by DearWife
Greetings...

My mother came up to me and told me that she heard on the news about a three foot chunk of ice that hit a park in Berkeley.

better plug your nose after that thing melts... could very well be a frozen chunk of airplane bathroom waste.

Mod Edit to trim quote.
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[edit on 10-4-2006 by Benevolent Heretic]

Anyone think it could be from this?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I know they said May, but could it be that some smaller pieces of the commet have been pulled in by the Earth? Just a suggestion.

Thank you all for the feedback. What I was shocked to learn from one of the websites Beelzebubba provided was:

Fafrotskies were rescued, virtually singlehandedly, from oblivion by Charles Hoy Fort. In The Book of the Damned (1919), he bombarded the reader with data of falling ice, ashes, mud, sulphur, hot water, bricks, cinders, stone axes, nails, iron chains, snakes, eels, ants, worms, periwinkles, lumps of meat, blood, 'butter', seeds, nuts, jelly and so on, including (of course) lots of fish and frogs.

Griff, I was thinking the exact thing. Maybe I can get some feedback from someone on that forum regarding this.

Griff,

I doubt very much that this block of ice is from the comet that is approaching. However, that is not to say that it couldn't be a chunk of ice from another comet that broke up eons ago or that it could have been quite simply a mini-comet about the size of a car or bus prior to entry into the earth's atmosphere. Is there any indication of the angle of entry as it crashed to the Earth?

Steeper entry angles are much more likely to hit than shallow angles of entry because of the amount of atmosphere they have to pass through. There are many of these things that never make it any closer than 100,000 ft above the surface of the Earth. They dissintegrate in the upper atmosphere or may actually explode.

Another thing that would happen if this was a mini-comet would be the sound of a sonic boom. It would have a double thump to it with the thumps 1-2 tenths of a second apart.

Just came across this...as the ice block in question...or rather the hole it made:



[edit on 10-4-2006 by loam]

Originally posted by DearWife
I actually went online and found this report:

What, you don't get online much?

Anyway, strange things falling from the sky are interesting to say the least. Especially in light of reports from the times before planes filled the skies. Makes one wonder what amazing circumstances send things (normally earth bound) airborne.

I just found this video and news report from the local news:
www.ktvu.com...

DarWife,

That is an interesting story. Some of the things I'm wondering are what time and what day did this take place? Were there any other witnesses in Oakland anywhere that saw or heard anything? Did anyone happen to notice the precise time that this happened or at least within a few minutes?

There is a distinct possibility that this could be a comet or comet fragment. Of course, there is also a strong possibility that it was ice falling off of a jet as the aviation expert suggested.

More reports from others in the area could lead to an answer. If we know the precise time of the event and checked incoming flights & flight paths to the area, then we might be able to rule in or out the ice off of the jet plane theory.

Most of the stories I saw around the internet were basically the same as the one you found, but I found these 2 also:

www.insidebayarea.com...
www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2006/04/09/BAG3OI6D091.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

In that second article there is a person who is studying ice meteors and he is considering the possibility with this incident. On thing is for sure...there are plenty of comets out there in space. Most of them are going to be so small that nobody will ever see them by telescope.

If this was a mini-comet, then I would dare to speculate that it had probably already made its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) and was heading back out into deeper space when its' orbit and Earth's crossed paths. If it was travelling outbound from the Sun, then that makes it doubly hard for astronomers to detect.

Thank you again for posting about this! Very cool stuff!!

Thanks davenman for the feedback and articles. I did read from one of the reports that "The mystery began about 10 a.m. Saturday..." I wouldn't know how to go about finding the incoming flights & flight paths though.

I'll be sure to keep an eye (and nose) out for anything unusual in the sky and air. It has been a bit cold to me lately and it has been raining alot. However, this past Saturday, was the clearest day that I've seen since the rain let up. I did notice what looked to be a sun dog when I was outside around 11:00 in the morning. I couldn't see if there was another one on the left side of the sun since the tree was in the way. Don't know if that has anything to do with any of this.

Here are some more websites dealing with iceballs:
www.knoxstudio.com...

"I am anxiously waiting to see what will happen this winter," Travis said. "We'll be keeping a lookout, and we want to make people in every state aware and ask their help. We strongly encourage eyewitnesses to preserve samples, in a freezer if need be, and contact us."

Attack of the Giant Ice Balls!

In January 2000, Spain came under attack from an unknown assailant. Giant chunks of ice dropped from cloudless skies and crushed car hoods, punched through rooftops and windshields, and slammed into the shoulder of an elderly woman. In a 10-day period, 15 basketball-sized ice balls weighing up to 8 pounds pelted southern Spain.

God Bless

Some kind of awesome phenomena where a discharge from the Earth to Space takes place, perhaps? The area quickly becomes cold and freezes any of the moisture in the area into clumps of ice.

The ice like that that falls from the sky has layers when you cut it open, like an onion.

I'm thinking about ice from space as well. I certainly don't see huge iceballs floating around in the clear sky when I'm looking out an airplane window. I read this is not that unusual and has happened since before there were airplanes. If it's not from space, it's a phenomenon that isn't very well explained IMO.

I have read that small rocks are consistently hitting the Earth's atmosphere from space on a somewhat routine basis so it makes sense to me that chunks of ice may do so as well. In fact I once saw what I believe must have been a huge iceball break up evenly into a million fiery pieces like a huge ball of glowing glitter spreading out to over several times the diameter of the full moon. It was a beautiful sight to see and one that I have never seen before or since. Of course how many people can truthfully claim they saw an exploding object from space? I do not believe too many people are watching the night skies and getting that lucky.

Is it possible that the guys on the space station are hurling these things down just to see what happens? Of course, they wouldn't tell us it was them...then they would become liable for damages.

It would be an interesting experiment though. I wonder just how fast a chunk of ice can fall. Would ice fall faster than most other objects because of less friction? How much friction and melting would take place upon entry into the Earth's atmosphere? How much would a chunk of ice break upon entry into the Earth's atmosphere? Would anyone actually suspect the International Space Station of conducting such an experiment?

Orion,

You are truly fortunate to have witnesses such an event.

From the stats I have read, that sort of thing probably happens about once a day somewhere over the Earth. However, since 2/3 of the Earth is covered by water, means that there is only a chance of a person witnessing that once every 3 days. Factor in that 1/2 of the land surface is basically uninhabited and the other half of the land is covered by clouds on half of the nights and that half of the time it is day when you won't notice such a thing and you are down to a day in 24 that it could be seen. Then add in that most of the population of the world wouldn't even bother to report such an incident to the press or their government. Even if they did, in most places it probably wouldn't be recorded. Then figure in that in most places, most everyone is asleep for about 2/3 of the night and the chances of such a thing being witnessed by anyone at all that would bother to report it become incredibly small. So....

You are very fortunate to have witnessed such a thing. I hope that I am as fortunate in my life.

I got lucky thanks to my older brother and mother who happened to be out on the balcony at a hotel at the beach. They yelled "quick, come see this!" I ran to see it and felt lucky. It was a bright fireball shooting across the sky before it started to blow apart and spread out like a fireball full of glitter. Since I have never seen any pictures quite like it, I do feel lucky. Actually I was wondering for a while why I never heard anything in the news but I suppose the event happens so fast that it would be even luckier to record such a thing. I'm glad I didn't try to record it or I would have missed it all. I call it a snowball from space. I might be more concerned if huge ice chunks started putting holes in the ground near me. I'm even luckier if you factor in that I don't spend very much time looking at the night sky.

I believe this happened in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." I remember seeing a big block of ice fall from the sky in the movie. I guess if we see this type of thing more frequently then it would be cause for concern. We're talking possible death if you get hit by one of these.

Troy