Recent UK 'Meteor'- something doesn't add up

So we've all read the reports and seen the videos of the recent UK 'meteor', however, there are a few strange things to this story that do seem not add up.

When I saw the object, my first reaction was "Aliens", my girlfriend said it was a "Chinese Lantern"

But seriously, the official direction of the 'meteor' is that it was heading westwards. I live right by the coast so I know which way is east and west and the 'meteor' I saw was not heading west, it was heading east. So was there more than one instance of this 'meteor'?





Are we looking at the same event?

I saw it at pretty much bang on 11pm. Other people claim to have seen something an hour earlier at 10pm.

www.bbc.co.uk...

One person who contacted the BBC said it was "kind of a mass of light, gold light. Everything moving in unison".

"It wasn't diverging... I thought it was a plane at first. It was quite low on the horizon and moving much slower than I'd expect to see a shooting star, but it was amazing."

"The best way I can explain it is that it looked like a train with all different carriages on it... it lasted about 25 to 30 seconds.

"I've never seen anything like it - it was really, really bright," he said.

It was all moving in unison, like a carriage and certainly doesn't seem to be a meteor shower which would flash across the sky.

According to Tim O'Brien from the Jodrell Bank Observatory-

"[The object was] probably 80 miles up or so, high up, moving very fast, actually, 18,000 miles an hour, probably, at least."

If it was 80 miles up and travelling at 18,000 miles an hour, and it wasn't a meteor, then think about just how big it actually was. He believes it was space junk, like a satellite or some other piece of 'space junk', yet if it was 80 miles up then it must have been huge!

Here's another video, which looks completely different to the other two-



This video shows 5 seperate lights travelling horizontally along the sky, seemingly seperated a lot more than as is seen in the other videos.

I think there is a good chance people saw and recorded different sightings and there were multiple instances.

Here are photo grabs from the 3 videos-



They look different, the top image has a 'fireball' above the rest of the seeming line, whereas the 2nd image seems to all be in line. The third image shows the sources of light much further apart.

So I'm not saying this is evidence of an alien invasion, but I think there is a good chance that many of the sightings were of a different event. It seems to be too slow to be a meteor, if it is 'space junk' then it seems very large to be a satellite or something like that.

UFO seems to fit the ball quite nicely, what do you all think- more than one event or just camera tricks and all 3 videos are of the same event?

IMHO I'd just say it is an issue of perspective. I was so gutted that I missed this event.

The screen pic of video two is pretty deceiving actually as there not even that far away from each other.

Thanks for sharing.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


I think you are raising some good points. There are many videos from this incident (or incidents as you suggest).

While I initially thought "meteor" I realize many videos seem to look more like "space junk" re-entering - but isn't the normal orbit west to east, not east to west? And it does seem curious that if this was a satellite or rocket, that it hasn't yet been identified as there are agencies that monitor all the satellites in orbit.

I do think that a sub-orbital test missile launch might take an opposing orbit - like missiles that are used for launching weapons - or defending against such missiles. But if its a rocket used to launch a satellite it should be west to east trajectory OR a polar orbit trajectory.

nope....something is fishy.....they look like a typical large iron meteorite, but they don't fall when slowed down for so long of a time....I saw the biggest one over dallas in 1978 or so, and it lasted a good 12 seconds, broke up and slowed noticably, broke up into colored frags and at the last bolided. I saw the ash cloud fall strait down.
this one doesn't drop?.....that's really suspicious. did it ever drop?

The thing that stood out for me in your post was that you saw it at eleven p.m. and others saw it an hour earlier.
Remember the fireball a few months ago over Britain?Most people saw it at three in the morning I think,my brother saw it at one a.m. on his way home from work.Strange.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


Regarding the timing of the meteor, it may be that some people have mixed up GMT with BST (there is 1 hour difference). It was also a Friday night, when traditionally many people are getting inebriated, which might well be the reason behind some mis-timed reports.

In my experience, in previous cases when a a big fireball is seen by many people, there are usually a few that make a mistake of this type.

The same goes for people's descriptions of the direction - a few usually get it wrong.

So does that mean it was not a meteor (or a reentering man-made object, which it may well have been)? No - I don't think so. There are at least 500 reports, the vast majority of which are consistent with it being a meteor, as well as footage, and photographs.

Originally posted by Wonderer2012
It was all moving in unison, like a carriage and certainly doesn't seem to be a meteor shower which would flash across the sky.

Firstly, it wasn't a "meteor shower", it was a fireball class meteor (natural, or man-made) that broke up at high altitude.

Secondly, not all meteors move fast across the sky.

Have you never seen footage of the famous Peekskill fireball which dropped meteorites on the ground on October 9, 1992?



Meteors can sometimes be slow, and where exactly is it written that the pieces resulting from the breakup of a meteoroid at high altitude can not move more or less in unison?

If you investigate previous reports of large meteors/fireballs (as I have done since 1998) you find that members of the general public often misidentify, misjudge, and generally make mistakes in their observations of events like this, primarily because most people do not have experience with events of this nature.

Of course people who are interested in UFOs will often have an agenda (to convince people that "UFOs are real"), so phenomena like meteors/fireballs which by their very nature often have mistakes in how they are reported will have those "mistakes" "cherry-picked" in an effort to support the beliefs of such people. Exactly what is being attempted here.

Ive been told its an Alien Recon Battalion from Zavfron 7 sorry yeah this stuff gets the grey matter going dont it..

Originally posted by Wonderer2012
He believes it was space junk, like a satellite or some other piece of 'space junk', yet if it was 80 miles up then it must have been huge!

Why must it have been "huge"?

Because it was bright?

Again, I think you are ignorant of how meteors work, and the physics of hypersonic objects entering the atmosphere.

A normal "shooting star"/meteor can be caused by a particle the size of a sand-grain, seen at 100 km altitude, and in the case of a reentry, a small (inch long) screw can cause an impressive fireball-class meteor.

Whilst size/mass does matter, the reason a small object can be so bright, and be seen from such a long distance is because it's traveling very fast. High velocity translates into high energy, which in the case of meteoroids entering the atmosphere is expended in the form of light.

High velocity is why a rife bullet weighing only a few grams will easily kill you if it hits you, but in the case of meteoroids, they are traveling so fast (100's of times faster than bullets) that the air around them glows brightly due to the ionizing collisions with air-molecules.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


The eye witnesses in the UK all said these things were not moving fast. Some said they were moving slow.

S & F mainly just 'cz of how hard Fireball here is trying to make you look silly OP

How's that sand taste? ..

I applaud the OP for thinking away from the box, I'm seriously starting to pity those who refuse to even entertain the possibility that there's anything outside the box..

Look around (globally)... tell me what you see, I pity the fool with their head in the sand.

I see your point in the videos, RE direction of the meteor heading . Did this meteor pass over land?


The reason I ask, is anybody South of the meteor, filming it going west, will show the meteor moving from right to left across the screen, whereas anybody filming from the North will show the meteor moving left to right across the screen.

Originally posted by Xarian6
I'm seriously starting to pity those who refuse to even entertain the possibility that there's anything outside the box..

Every time one of these events is widely seen, someone comes up with an "out of the box" theory on what it was.

Yet there is never any actual evidence to support such a theory.

On the other hand, there is plenty of hard evidence that similar events to this one are due to natural meteors or conventional man-made satellite reentries.

I don't have anything against "thinking out of the box" per se, but the OP's "theory" is based on nothing but assumptions. The OP could instead have done a bit of research before posting this thread.

Sorry but I personally am very passionate about meteors, and have spent MANY 100's of hours observing, researching, and trying to photograph them, so when someone who has not even bothered to do the most basic of research into the subject decides to declare that there is something very odd about the meteor, I would have to argue that they have made themselves look silly by not knowing what they are talking about.

That aside, there is something odd about the meteor, which is already being discussed in the main thread on the subject - there are at least three good possibilities that could potentially fit what was seen by hundreds of people on the 21st, without having to resort to pseudoscience and assumption.

reply to post by Wonderer2012


Id like to see the screen shots you have please.

this may help you.



EDIT: oh you fixed it Thank you
Love and harmony
Whateva

Originally posted by AmatuerSkyWatcher
I see your point in the videos, RE direction of the meteor heading . Did this meteor pass over land?


The reason I ask, is anybody South of the meteor, filming it going west, will show the meteor moving from right to left across the screen, whereas anybody filming from the North will show the meteor moving left to right across the screen.

Well that's the thing.

The two videos are both north of my location, the Forfar one is the furthest north and that is the direction I saw it travel. Yet from the video in the middle (Dalbeatie), it travels in the other direction

Originally posted by Xarian6
S & F mainly just 'cz of how hard Fireball here is trying to make you look silly OP

How's that sand taste? ..

I applaud the OP for thinking away from the box, I'm seriously starting to pity those who refuse to even entertain the possibility that there's anything outside the box..

Look around (globally)... tell me what you see, I pity the fool with their head in the sand.

Cheers, and to point out to him, experts are in debate as to what the fireballs actually were.

Some way space junk, ie satellite for example. Whilst others say meteor.

The thread is more about the possibility there were two different events, because some say they saw it at 10pm whilst I know I saw it at 11pm because I had just got home from the cinema, the film finishing at 10:30pm.

Also, from my location, the fireball moved from right to left, yet two locations north of me show it moving in different directions- the furthest north one being the same as me- so how does the one in the middle travel in the opposite direction?

Originally posted by Whateva69
reply to post by Wonderer2012

 

Id like to see the screen shots you have please.

this may help you.

EDIT: oh you fixed it Thank you
Love and harmony
Whateva

edit on 24/9/12 by Whateva69 because: (no reason given)

I;m stealing this one thank you

Originally posted by FireballStorm

Originally posted by Wonderer2012
He believes it was space junk, like a satellite or some other piece of 'space junk', yet if it was 80 miles up then it must have been huge!

Why must it have been "huge"?

Because it was bright?

Again, I think you are ignorant of how meteors work, and the physics of hypersonic objects entering the atmosphere.

A normal "shooting star"/meteor can be caused by a particle the size of a sand-grain, seen at 100 km altitude, and in the case of a reentry, a small (inch long) screw can cause an impressive fireball-class meteor.

Whilst size/mass does matter, the reason a small object can be so bright, and be seen from such a long distance is because it's traveling very fast. High velocity translates into high energy, which in the case of meteoroids entering the atmosphere is expended in the form of light.

High velocity is why a rife bullet weighing only a few grams will easily kill you if it hits you, but in the case of meteoroids, they are traveling so fast (100's of times faster than bullets) that the air around them glows brightly due to the ionizing collisions with air-molecules.

After reading your above post- I am curious- where was the ISS during these fireballs (I ask of everyone who's on here BTW- someone can come up with the info, I am sure)? It makes me wonder if they didnt jettison trash and it did this.

reply to post by wylekat


Easily checked using heavens-above.com...

It turns out that on the 21st there were passes @:

04:59:41
06:35:43
08:12:22
09:49:18

So none that correspond with the timing of the fireball.

Also, the ISS goes from west - east, which doesn't fit with the fireball observations.

We do actually have an orbit calculated for the object now (which I posted here) that fits with the fireball being caused by a natural earth-grazing meteor.

Originally posted by dayve

edit on 24-9-2012 by dayve because: (no reason given)

Very insightful