Loud explosions in Hampton Roads area, page 1

Loud explosions in Hampton Roads area

hamptonroads.com

Loud explosions, lights in sky reported from Maryland to N.C

911 dispatchers from Maryland to Hampton Roads got numerous calls Sunday night about loud explosions and lights in the sky.

There was no immediate explanation for the noise, according to the National Weather Service office in Wakefield. The Virginia Beach 911 center had numerous calls waiting just before 10 p.m. The Weather Service said reports were made from Dorchester County, Md., to the Virginia/North Carolina border.

People said they saw a streak in the sky and heard an explosion.

“It was orange, like a fireball,” said Steve Wagner, who lives in the Great Bridge area of Chesapeake and said what he saw was too close to be a shooting star.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 29-3-2009 by way2slo]

There was a really loud Boom in Hampton Roads area tonight that was felt over a 150 mile radius. Some say they seen a large ball or flame. The Police scanner has been blowing up non stop for the past hour. It will be on the news im sure. Almost all my neighbors came out of their houses to see what was going on.

hamptonroads.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by awake_awoke

---

I'll agree that what I saw was a blue flash. I turned to my right, which is the south (toward Chesapeake). I wish I had seen a fire ball! Man, those trees block the view! As of now, the news has said the police are out looking and have found nothing (so far). I should add, I have heard no unusual aircraft in the sky. I live near the Naval Air Station Oceana, and I've heard no jets in the sky.

Edited to say: I wanted to add that earlier (8ish) I thought I saw a star moving in the Eastern sky. I thought it was a satellite (and I still think it was a satellite). I was distracted by someone on the street, and when I looked back, I couldn't find the satellite. I see satellites in the sky now and then, so this was not a big deal for me. I do not think the boom/flash is related to the moving light. However, I wanted to report this right now so no one can say I was conveniently making up facts in case this light story gets strange. I'm guessing it was just a meteorite. I hope they find it!

[edit on 29-3-2009 by Pamie]

Here we go again...

I literally just made a post relating to this same topic

It sounds as though this was a meteor, and since "noises" were heard, there's a good chance meteorites would have resulted. Perhaps if enough people saw it, or it was captured on film, some meteorites will be recovered.

Incidentally, it's not that uncommon to report a meteor apparently being close to the ground, but any meteorites would almost certainly be some hundreds of km away from where this was seen.

Here's what I posted earlier on the subject, including links to a few recent related events/threads here on ATS:

This question comes up quite often, and the answer is that it is possible for meteors to appear to be at very low altitude, however it's only an illusion that occurs since our eyes/brains can't judge distance well when it comes to a light source in the sky (although there may be some exceptional circumstances where this might be possible that Il'll get on to later).

We also know that the vast majority of meteors completely "burn up" (it's actually a process known as "ablation" that is responsible for the light/heat produced) at altitudes of around 80-100 km. They are usually the size of grain of sand, or perhaps rice. Brighter meteors or fireballs (a meteor that is brighter than the planet Venus), are usually a bit larger, perhaps the size of a pebble, or even a football in some cases.

Even these larger meteoroids are not very good at penetrating our atmosphere very deeply, which is a good thing since they are surprisingly common. When a meteoroid first encounters our atmosphere, it's a bit like a diver belly flopping from 100m, and that is just the "wispy" upper part of our atmosphere. Lower down, at around 40 km the atmosphere is effectively like a concrete barrier to all but the largest/hardest meteors, and these are very rare.

In perhaps 99.9999% of cases, where meteorites do make it below 40km and reach the ground, they will have ceased to be luminous for a good few minutes before reaching the ground, since the atmosphere slows them down so rapidly. In many of these cases the meteoroid is traveling so fast initially, that is simply disintegrates (most meteoroids are actually composed of quite fragile material) in a bright flash, which is what happened in at least 3 "major" events covered here on ATS in the last 6 months or so:

Massive object crashes over Edmonton, Canada
UFO - meteor like object with sonic boom above Dallas and Austin Texas!
A few meters planetoid will hit Earth

Check out the video footage, in the first two threads especially.

Getting back to the topic at hand, this page explains in a bit more detail about why meteors can appear to be closer to the ground than they actually are.

This diagram should help you visualize what is going on:

Basically, the lower down in the sky (or closer to the horizon) a meteor appears to be, the further away it probably is. In the exceptional cases where this is not the case, and a meteor is still luminous, and less than 1km away from you, unless you're within diving distance of a bunker, that would probably be the last thing you ever saw.

It's worth mentioning what happened in 1908, when what is thought to be a fragment of a comet exploded somewhere between 5 and 10 km above Tunguska, devastating an estimated 2150 square km and knocking down 80 million trees!

Related reading, that should answer all your other questions:
Seen a swift/very swift moving light (colored or white) in the sky?

original post

Originally posted by TH3ON3
So, meteors can and do travel very low to the ground on rare occasions.

It can seem that way, yes, but if you carefully read the post I made above, and follow this link which was also in that post, you'll see that it's extremely unlikely that you were anywhere near to a luminous meteor, or that it was anywhere near to the ground when it was luminous.

I was reading the comments on the site and came across this one:

Im glad that Im not crazy and that this made news. Im in Chesapeake= I was on my porch and a bright white light and dimmer red flashing lights were above the house. It was moving about as slow as a hovering copter but had no sound. It disappeared completely in about 4 seconds. No streak of light-Just vanished.. The loud boom came from the opposite direction about a minute later. I think it was an aircraft of some kind..

hamptonroads.com...

flashing red lights....??

Is it possible that this was another failed rocket launch by NASA from Wallops Island, that had to be destroyed?
hamptonroads.com...

An experimental rocket carrying $17 million worth of NASA experiments was destroyed early Friday morning after it veered off course soon after launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore. Explosive charges on the nose of the rocket were detonated by NASA about 27 seconds after the 5:10 a.m. launch. The agency said most of the wreckage probably fell into the Atlantic Ocean, although a resident of Modest Town reported debris starting a fire on Assawoman Island.

Although the above incident was from 2008, it might be another one. Explosive charges are placed on many of the rockets, in case they go off course.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
Is it possible that this was another failed rocket launch by NASA from Wallops Island, that had to be destroyed?
hamptonroads.com...

An experimental rocket carrying $17 million worth of NASA experiments was destroyed early Friday morning after it veered off course soon after launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore. Explosive charges on the nose of the rocket were detonated by NASA about 27 seconds after the 5:10 a.m. launch. The agency said most of the wreckage probably fell into the Atlantic Ocean, although a resident of Modest Town reported debris starting a fire on Assawoman Island.

Although the above incident was from 2008, it might be another one. Explosive charges are placed on many of the rockets, in case they go off course.

I do not think so. For the blast to be heard over than large of an area the blast had to be big, Ii mean really big like a small nuke. Just be glad this was an high attitude detonation. If it had detonated lower or hit the ground it could had been really bad. I wonder how long until the next one. Maybe chicken little was right and the sky is falling.

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