Trooper, Motorist: Mysterious Object Fell From Sky

Originally posted by Elepheagle

Originally posted by Destinyone
reply to post by Elepheagle

 

Right NASA telling us the truth. Does this mean NASA has a team on site to make the statement.

I used to trust NASA, I've come to the conclusion they are no more than a mouth piece for a higher group.

Des

Read the article. It's not just NASA that has confirmed. There you can also read about a similar event that happened in New Zealand on the same day.

OK went back to reread all the links you've posted. The first in the OP has this for the info...

LITCHFIELD, Conn. (AP) — Authorities in northwestern Connecticut say they didn't find anything after a state trooper and another person reported a large object falling out of the sky in Litchfield.

The Republican-American of Waterbury reports (http://(link tracking not allowed)/HEwTYZ ) that a person driving in Litchfield at about 2 a.m. Tuesday reported that a green, glowing object the size of a whale fell from the sky and crashed into Bantam Lake. Officials say that at about the same time, a state trooper 10 miles away in Warren called dispatchers to report that something fell out of the sky and landed near Bantam or Morris.

Morris firefighters made several passes up and down the lake in a boat looking for a possible plane crash, but didn't find any debris.

Authorities called off the search, leaving the mystery unsolved.

__

As you can see from the above link...*leaving the mystery unsolved*. No mention of NASA at all.

The subsequent links you posted are regarding Texas and New Zealand.

To me that leaves the original story in the OP a mystery....NASA has not issued a statement yet.

Des

reply to post by Destinyone


Sorry, think wires have been crossed; the NASA confirmation was in response to another user who maintained that the Texas fireball (an example I used of another recent meteor event, which is what I believe is the likely explanation for the CT event) was actually a jet contrail.

Yes, the CT green fireball is still a mystery, though I'm leaning towards meteor.

Originally posted by Elepheagle
reply to post by Destinyone

 

Sorry, think wires have been crossed; the NASA confirmation was in response to another user who maintained that the Texas fireball (an example I used of another recent meteor event, which is what I believe is the likely explanation for the CT event) was actually a jet contrail.

Yes, the CT green fireball is still a mystery, though I'm leaning towards meteor.

All is OK...I think you are right...crossed wires....

Carry on...

Des

reply to post by Elepheagle

Pretty neat! Curious if they'll send a dive team out to explore further, or if we'll hear more from the witnesses.

Even if it just the size of a big Bass, it would be worth thousands of dollars!! Maybe I need to schedule a Connecticut Dive trip! 900 acres isn't all that large, 23 feet isn't all that deep, and a huge chunk of metal shouldn't be that hard to find.

GRA is retiring on meteor money!

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by Elepheagle

 

Pretty neat! Curious if they'll send a dive team out to explore further, or if we'll hear more from the witnesses.

Even if it just the size of a big Bass, it would be worth thousands of dollars!! Maybe I need to schedule a Connecticut Dive trip! 900 acres isn't all that large, 23 feet isn't all that deep, and a huge chunk of metal shouldn't be that hard to find.

GRA is retiring on meteor money!

I wish you nothing but the best!

This news reminds me of the Ghost Rockets that plunged in Scandinavian Lakes back in '46.
BTW, there is a lot of stuff falling down the last few months.
War in Space?

Not much point in looking for anything in a lake after an event like this.

Why? Because we've been though this countless times before...


One thing that a bright meteor/fireball can often do to people is to make them think it is a lot closer and lower than it actually is. Our brains are not very good determining the distance/altitude of an object, and we subconsciously make assumptions like "it's bright, so it must be close" which are more often than not wrong.

It's not unusual when a bright fireball is seen by lots of people, that a few will ring up the emergency services to report seeing a "UFO" or "flaming aircraft falling out of the sky". Sometimes, if we are lucky and enough people give accurate descriptions of the event, or the event is caught on camera, meteorite fragments are found, and they are invariably many tens/hundreds of km away from where people thought they saw it fall.

Meteorite hunters/researchers have been aware of this for a very long time. Not much has changed over the last 100 or so years.

In the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland Journal from April, 1879, the author writes:

My purpose, as I have said before, is to collect everything that is known on the subject of British Meteorites ; to establish by means of copious references every fact relative to each recorded fall ; and to inquire into all doubtful instances, so as to ascertain, if possible, whether their authenticity can be proved, and to expunge them from the list if they can be shown to be the results of errors.

The doubtful instances of meteoric falls may be classed under four general heads :-

1st. A meteor has been seen apparently to fall, and a search has been made where it seemed to descend. The results of those searches have included nodules of pyrite, fragments of scoriae, hematite, and ordinary pebbles, all distinctly terrestrial, but which have been described as "Meteorites"
(continued at the source)

www.meteoritehistory.info...

Due to their great brightness large meteors often create a remarkable optical illusion in which it appears that they have hit the ground somewhere nearby. The glowing fireballs we see in the night sky are caused by atmospheric pressure and friction, but meteors stop ablating (burning) approximately seven miles high. If you are lucky enough to witness a bright fireball, and the flame goes out while it's directly overhead, it is possible that the meteorite will land nearby. When we see a bright shooting star apparently landing close by, what we are usually seeing is a fireball arcing away, over the horizon, still high up in the atmosphere. Due to the curvature of the Earth, the fireball may seem to hit the ground, but has in fact just moved out of our field of view and gone beyond the horizon. Because of its extreme brightness the fireball appears — to our human eyes — to be much closer than it actually is. It's something I, myself, have been fortunate enough to witness a couple of times and it's frustrating because it does look as if the meteorite landed "just over there." However, it probably landed hundreds of miles away. Another thing to consider is that when a meteorite lands near observers, those witnesses report hearing loud sonic booms, and/or "whizzing" noises. If no sound accompanied the spectacle, then the meteor was probably a great distance away. But at least you had the privilege of witnessing a real fireball!

aerolite.org

I started a thread here looking at the subject of why people are bad at judging distance/altitude/etc with examples (including another fireball event) here:
How good are we at estimating the distance and altitude of UFOs?


If it looks like a duck, it probably is a duck - as the OP suggested, this case "screams" meteor.

We know it's common for people to misjudge distance and/or misidentify (or "nor be able to identify") meteors, and in this case everything else mentioned is characteristic of a meteor to add to this, so why would it not be a meteor?

Still not convinced?

Why is it that we have so many supposed "crashing UFOs" reported at the same time as fireballs are reported (virtually in every widely-seen event that is logged in The American Meteor Society's Fireball Database a few reports can be found where people were unsure what they were seeing)?

We also hear in reports that "the UFO" was "seen to fall" in a certain area, but another witness "beyond" the first reports "seeing it even further away" (as I looked at in my example case/thread I linked to above), which prove the UFO reports are wrong, and the meteor is actually much further away and higher than it appears to be.

Whilst not every bright meteor provides proof of it's origins in the form of a meteorite/s, a few do, and in cases when they are caught on camera, they behave as "rocks from outer space" should behave.

On the other hand, after so many supposed "UFO crashes", how many crashed UFOs or UFO fragments have ever actually turned up? - bearing in mind these "things" occur all over the world, a few times a day, and throughout the year.

Sorry for the long reply, but there is lots of strong evidence if you look, and I've been looking for the best part of 15 years into the subject of meteors and fireballs. None of this is any surprise to me, especially given my own personal experience observing/ photographing meteors and fireballs. I've actually seen with my own eyes many "odd" looking meteors/fireballs, including those that seem closer than they actually are.

Some of the best were during the build up to the Leonid storm in 2001, when I took this photograph of an "all green" Leonid earth grazing meteor.



Green meteors do occur from time to time, but it's rare to photograph one, especially an earth grazer. The photo does not really do the meteor justice in terms of how long and spectacular the meteor seemed at the time.

Some might say the meteor does not look real, but I have the negative, and 100s of others taken on the same night, which would be virtually impossible to fake... I would say it looked even less real in real life!

I remember that Meteor storm. Absolutely incredible. I did not see any green ones but i will swear to this day that a small meteorite hit behind my neighbors house. Sounded like a bottle rocket zipping through the leaves of the trees and high speed without being stopped until it hit the ground.