That looks incredible. Can I just ask at this point, in light of the recent Aussie bloke MADNESS, why are all these reports of meteors coming in? There was one in New Zeland and a few more right? Am I just paranoid?

nothing to worry about...pic was from last year 2003

besides these occurences are apperantly quite frequent (in one form or another) it's just that we don't pay attention to them [at 1st]..

True, it just suddenly seemd like there was a rush of reports. Glad to know these things happen regularly.

I kinda remember this.
If I recall, it was determined to be a contrail from a jet.
It was taken close to sunset, and only the bulbous
portion of the trail was still being illuminated by the sun.

This made it look like a smoke trail with an explosion towards one end.

space


[edit on 14-6-2004 by spacedoubt]

A contrail? I can't believe it.

If it's genuine (and it certainly looks that way to me) it looks more like meteor.

Muppet,

Yeah, pretty sure a contrail..
Very sure it was good lighting.
It lingered there after sunset, same shape, just not
all hot and "explosive" looking..

Do you have any more links to stories on this?

I''d expect the smoke/debris to linger a bit in the air before it dispersed. Smoke from an exploding asteroid would behave in a similar way to contrails in that respect, but this is SOOOO not a reflection from a contrail!!

why would a contrail just stop like that? where's the plane? Look at the thickness of the trail, it's way too big, or too close, and contrails don't form at that low altitude..

you can actually see some of the sun's reflection in the upper part of the trail, where it is above cloud level. that's what the sun's reflections look like. They don't produce fireball effects like that.

It's either

a) a meteor, or some other falling space junk/old satellite or something or,
b) a digital fake.

If it's a fake, it's a very VERY good one by a talented artist. Given the back-story though from the BBC I'm more inclined to believe it's real, and therefore (a) above.

I can't believe NASA would come out and say it's a contrail, but.. it seems they have. weird!!

It is a contrail lit up by the setting sun.

Look at it this way: Why just one picture? If this was a mass of flaming plasma, then you would expect that the shape of the “fireball” to change and move as it dissipated.

Why just one picture? Where are the follow up shots of the “fireball?”

It is a contrail. The lighting lasted long enough for the picture to be taken.

those Yukon images look more similar to these South Wales ones..

The second image confirms IMHO that it is some sort of fireball and not a contrail. I really don't know what to say. I can only imagine NASA was embarrassed about some sort of space junk they dropped, but why not just call it a meteor instead?

Ditto the sorry mod

It's still not a contrail though.

Notice how the sun illuminates the TOP of the trail, and not the bottom. Since the sun is setting/already set in this picture, it means the trail is pointing DOWN, not horizontal as an aircraft contrail would. Do a search for "contrail sunset". Lots of photos, but none like this.

I dont think its a contrail either, it starts too abruptly prob the beginning of the smoke or debris trail may be the point the meteor ( im convinced its a meteor ) entered the atmosphere.
EDIT:Edited for correction

[edit on 14-6-2004 by Janus]

I'm normally pretty skeptical about stuff like this, and NASA of all groups I though would be pretty honest....still this gets me wondering.

Does anyone remember why the alternative concorde/contrail theory was proposed at the time, rather then putting it down to a meteor/fireball, which was most people's, including NASA's, first impression?

COULD this have been something crashing and burning up that they didn't want to tell anyone about? Some sort of aircraft? I really don't know....other than it ain't no contrail!!