Nice short vid of a meteor looking object

www.filecabi.net... There is a link to the vid, I know its most likely a meteor but it could be a UFO what you all think?

Thats a pretty badass meteorite.

That sir, looks like meteor to me. I have seen quite a few meteors in my time here, and to me it looks like a Taurid, although it does seem a bit fast for a Taurid, but that one is a real stunner by anyones standards!

See for yourself, I have uploaded a video of a Taurid meteor which was captured during one of NASA's Leonid observing campaigns (I think it was either 2001 or 2002) on a camera on board a jet - It used to be available on the web, but I can't seem to find the link anymore, so I've uploaded it here

Who knows though?! How many of us can honestly say we've seen a UFO crash ?

There is of course this video:
video.google.co.uk...
..which is nothing new, and could just be a missile of some kind being tested.

Anyway, the original video in question is probably a meteor I think it would be safe to say.. without further evidence, for instance if there was a crash site, it's impossible to conclude any more from that clip, apart from WoW!

Yes I am also 99.9% sure its just meteor as well but it was pretty stunning and there is that 0.1% chance its something else so I figured I post it up and see what the group consensus was. I have seen a few live meteors in my day and never seen one like that though, it must have been pretty low and a decent sized object to imo. Wish the video caught the whole thing but its at least clearly visable and I think that shows us we can catch high speed objects traveling very high on video and they can show up CLEARLY!

this is either fake, or something else...

its not a meteor, because it burns for way too long, and i dont think meteors leave contrails.....

im not an expert so i could be wrong. but it looks a little cgi to me.

[edit on 28-3-2007 by nightsider]

if thats CGI then they did a real good job but I am not an expert but its labeled "shooting star over Mexico" so I thinks that all it is but it just looks weird to me since I never seen one like that and I have seen a few before with my own eyes.

Originally posted by nightsider
this is either fake, or something else...

its not a meteor, because it burns for way too long, and i dont think meteors leave contrails.....

im not an expert so i could be wrong. but it looks a little cgi to me.

Meteors can last for many seconds, but the vast majority are less than 1 second. I have personally seen meteors that last twice as long as this (10 or 12 seconds perhaps even a bit longer) - but then I have spent 100's of hours under the stars observing meteors, and seen probably close to 10.000 meteors in that time.

You are correct though, meteors do not leave "contrails" - they leave Ionization trails or as they are known in the trade as "persistent trains".

See this web page for some photographs of persistent trains

That meteor in the OP's clip is a rare catch for sure, but I have seen meteors that were just as hair-raising. Try spending some time under the stars, and observe on meteor shower peak-nights (google "Perseids", "Leonids" and "Geminids" those are the best 3 showers right now/this year), and you will see some amazing things.

[edit on 28-3-2007 by C.H.U.D.]

Have seen lots of meteors, a couple of fireballs etc. It looks more like light reflecting off an aircraft/metal object to me - not sure though.

Originally posted by Slickinfinity
www.filecabi.net... There is a link to the vid, I know its most likely a meteor but it could be a UFO what you all think?

I think it's a great little clip, and it is an excellent fit to reentering space debris. I'd love to catch something like that on video myself.

Yep,

A fireball flew over my head many years ago walking home early one morning..

I heard a sound like a fighter Jet roaring overhead, I looked up and saw a huge ball of flames about 100ft above me going at a tremendous speed. It dissapeared over a block of flats towards the woods close to my house. I heard no impact noise, so i think it burnt out.

A few days later it appeared in the local paper as a meteor which was tracked from Falkirk to Livingston ( 18 miles away ) by Edinburgh Airport air traffic control. The Police recieved quit a few UFO calls that night.

I can believe i was lucky enough to witness it.. Most probably the first and only time ill see such an amazing spectacle.

And these impact hardly on the ground?

Originally posted by Bellatrix
Have seen lots of meteors, a couple of fireballs etc. It looks more like light reflecting off an aircraft/metal object to me - not sure though.

Hey Bellatrix,

Good to see a fellow observer on here.

I'm surprised that you don't think it's a meteor. Did you notice, that in the video, the sun appears to be on the horizon and fast disappearing under it (judging from the state of the sky), and it does seem as though the sunset is in the direction which the camera man is filming in. I think just this aspect alone precludes it from being sun-light reflecting from an object like a plane.

With the sun at this angle, don't you think it is a bit strange that the object seems to be emitting bright white light? If it were a plane. and it were catching the sun, wouldn't it be a reddish-orange hue of light?


Here's another example of a very bright meteor with similar characteristics.

Originally posted by disownedsky
I think it's a great little clip, and it is an excellent fit to reentering space debris. I'd love to catch something like that on video myself.

It's way too fast to be reentering space debris. There is a big difference in speed between meteors and things that were previously in orbit. Remember the Columbia shuttle reentry ? That was a classic example!

Here are a couple of other examples :
www.youtube.com...
www.youtube.com...

One thing that stands out to me is that the when its pulses the bright light it looks to be reflected light and not light generated by the object itself? Could it be a very shiny object that is reflecting the suns light?

Originally posted by Paul the seeker
And these impact hardly on the ground?

The vast majority of meteors burn up on entry of the Earth's atmosphere, but out of the millions that fall on our atmosphere every day (most of it no bigger than a grain of sand), the occasional larger one will make it to the ground (or sea) without being vaporised. The make-up of the meteor will also play a large part - iron and stony meteoroids are more lightly to make it through than cometary debris which tends to be much more "fluffy" in texture.

The fireball in the OP's link would probably have been around the size of a basket ball, when it first hit the atmosphere. I would say there is a good chance that something made it to the ground in that event.

Originally posted by Slickinfinity
One thing that stands out to me is that the when its pulses the bright light it looks to be reflected light and not light generated by the object itself? Could it be a very shiny object that is reflecting the suns light?

See my post above for the reasons why I belive this is not possible - if the sun was high/higher in the sky, then yes, perhaps then this might have been a plausible theory.

By the way, the reason it is "flashing" so violently, is because it's fast disintergrating.. the material is obviously very "flakey" and not as solid as an iron/hard-stony meteor would be. This is typical behaviour for this type of material, but it's rare to see such a good example captured on tape.

Same to you C.H.U.D.

Have seen nowhere near as many meteors as you have though.

BTW - What's the strangest thing you've seen?

Check out the comments for the video on YouTube.
youtube.com...#

Basically, one of the comments is from a guy (who says he has published scientific papers on meteors...?) who claims that it is a fighter jet with afterburner on. While another person says that it is a meteor ( and he should know as he has 53 years of experience in astronomy. . .) etc.

I'm still on the fence, I suppose.

Whatever it is, it's a beautiful sight to behold. Looks like a baby star. Maybe our sun gave birth. Anyway, it's beautiful and the quality of the video displays that beauty very clearly.

Originally posted by Bellatrix

Have seen nowhere near as many meteors as you have though.

Well the vast majority of those were seen in just one night, during the peak of the 2001 Leonids - a night that will live with me for the rest of my life! So, just one "lucky" night could see you catching up to me

Originally posted by Bellatrix
BTW - What's the strangest thing you've seen?

There are a few events that stick in my mind as being strange to say the least:

1.
Dual very-dim (+2 or +3mag) nebulous meteors flying very slowly(speed=1) next to each other, along parallel courses - that was 3 or 4 years ago perhaps. Probably explainable, but strange none the less.

2.
Another long and very slow "meteor" during the 2003 Perseids, which appeared to make a very wide curve throughout the the 8-10 seconds that it was visible for. It remained constant in brightness throughout, perhaps around +1 mag IIRC, and it traversed in the region of 90-100 degrees of sky.

3.
But the strangest of the lot, occurred when I was first getting in to meteor observing.. I first noticed it almost directly after it had passed overhead, since directly overhead and behind was obscured by bricks & mortar. At the same time, I became aware of a "buzzing" sound, which matches up with other peoples accounts of "electrophonic" phenomena.

What I saw made my jaw drop - it did not seem bright, no where near as bright as the moon, but it did appear to be glowing in places, a deep red-orange, much like a partially cooled down boulder of lava - it looked as if its rough surface, which appeared to be jet black, had cracks in it, and the interior was still molten!

There was absolutely no sound (apart from the buzzing I mentioned earlier) as it continued its passage across the sky, going from North to South, and eventually disappeared behind a building. I watched it for what seemed an eternity, but I think it was closer to 15 seconds!

I'm still trying to work out in my own mind what I saw that night, because it defies everything I know, and I have never heard of any other event quite like it before! The sheer apparent size is what I find most disconcerting - if this was some kind of NEO above the atmosphere (it has to be above, since it's not glowing), then it must have been, and this is just an educated guess, about the size of a small planetoid - it certainly covered more surface area than the moon when I first observed it, perhaps as much as 2 or 3x surface area, I'm not too sure.

I know how crazy all that sounds, but I know what I saw, and I have never seen anything in all my years like it.. It's not something I generally talk about openly in public.

Originally posted by Bellatrix
Check out the comments for the video on YouTube.
youtube.com...#

Basically, one of the comments is from a guy (who says he has published scientific papers on meteors...?) who claims that it is a fighter jet with afterburner on. While another person says that it is a meteor ( and he should know as he has 53 years of experience in astronomy. . .) etc.

I'm still on the fence, I suppose.

I'm glad you brought that up, because it's all coming back now.. I had completely forgotten about the after burner theory, and it looks a pretty clear cut case of that being the answer, although I have not seen many after burners in action, it does seem to be the most lightly explanation in this case. Good work bring that up Bellatrix

If you watch the clip again, you'll notice that the object takes a curved path, which I had put down to being a lens aberration previously. This pretty much guarantees that this is a plane we are seeing. Also, now that I think about it, if it were a meteor, then the clouds would appear to be back-lit, and they do not. Case Closed I think.

zeetroyman,

By the sound of it (literally), I think an after-burner would explain what you saw and more importantly what you heard. The sounds meteors make are pretty much restricted to ELP, as I described above, or sonic booms/thunder claps.. as far as I know. So it is strange that you can connect your observation with a large meteor event - perhaps only a co-incidence ? But who knows?

Perhaps, if you have an accurate time for your event, then with a bit of detective work you could get a definitive answer if it was or was not indeed connected with the documented event..