Yet another Fireball explodes, shakes homes in Minnesota

WeRpeons
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

You bring up some good points. It seems like the world population is being kept in the dark.

Not really, we can see and hear them. It's been happening since Earth was born. It is what made Earth. Just more technology, people with camera phones, and the internet make it seem like there are more.

reply to post by Rezlooper


Sure, here you go: World population growth in different areas of the world:



Source

A lot more people in a lot more places.

Here's a graph of cell phone users:



Source

And as you know, cell phones with picture taking abilities and video abilities has been around for a long time, and has gotten better and better each year.

Amount of users for the internet:



Source

And as people know, the internet has become a magical way to getting information posted quickly, news reported quickly, etc, etc.

I can still remember when to report a possible new comet, I had to use a telephone number......and then wait weeks and weeks for a response.

As per ATS policy, I'm not really suppose to post any personal information in posts about myself as far as who I really am, though I could send it via U2U.

However, I can tell you that I was born in Newport, RI back in 1966, moved to Florida, then New Mexico, the California. I got there when I was 7. My father was in the US Navy himself, and being a military brat, we moved around quite a bit.

We left San Diego when I was 9 and moved to Seoul, S. Korea where I lived from 1976 until 1979 while my father was stationed at the JUSMAG unit there (stands for Joint US Military Assistance Group). This is also where I started my interest in Astronomy.

Left there when I was 12 and moved to Bangkok, Thailand where my father was stationed at the JUSMAG there. I went to the International School of Bangkok, which was quite different from being in a DOD school. Met a lot of interesting people during my 2 years there. Saw the Bridge over the river Kwai, saw a lot of elephants, saw a LOT of monks with shaved heads and bright orange sharongs. Learned how to speak some phrases of Thai, then in 1981 we left and moved to:

Naples, Italy! Loved this place more than anywhere else. Attened Forrest Sherman High School in my 10th grade year, but the high school was closed down and we had to move to the Horse Shoe school next to NSA (Naval Support Activity). My father was stationed at AFSouth at this time, working for NATO.

I graduated there in 1984. I was in band, and was the Band president. Anyone who cares to look up that year book just might figure out who I am now.

Swore into the Navy and left Italy in January 1985. I served on the USS Preble DDG-46, USS Coontz DDG-40 (decommed her in Philly), USS MacDonough DDG-39 (Decommed her in Charleston), served a Fleet Mine Warfare as a instructor for the AN/SWG-1A for the Harpoon cruise missile system.

Got out of the navy and decided to stick around here in SC since my father had retired here himself. That was back in 1994.

Wasn't "convenient". It was an adventure, and I was very lucky as a kid.

You want to see some fireballs? GO OUTSIDE. Sit outside...not for a few minutes. For HOURS. The longer you spend outside, the larger your chances of seeing something streaking across the sky. The more often you do it, again the larger your chances become.

I have spent literally hours and hours either freezing my butt off, or being eaten alive by bugs. All to capture images on my camera of the sky, look through my telescope, or to simply keep track of things in the sky.

Does this mean that I'm saying that there is no increase in Fireball activity? No. That is not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is what has been put out several times in other threads, and even this one: there could be an increase in activity. There could be an increase in reporting. There could be an increase in people's ability to capture and report.

Or it could be all three.

But, exactly HOW do you keep a secret in the sky? HOW do you "keep people in the dark" about astronomy?
With LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people who are both amateur and professional astronomers.....HOW so you "keep people in the dark" about what is going on?

You don't, and they haven't.

Instead, you're simply rejecting the different reasonable answers in favor of a more dark, more conspiracy theory idea......because for some reason, you feel a need for it.

How about you do some research? You've done a lot on Methane. Now do it for Astronomy. Learn about what is going on out there. Join the millions of discussion groups online. ASK amateur and professional astronomers (even though you have several right here on ATS), go ask them. See what they have to say.

You'll find that they'll give you the same 3 answers I gave you: denser area of material, more people to see them, and better abilities to report them.

I'm betting it still won't sit with you. That it will STILL have to be some dark conspiracy.

SixX18

WeRpeons
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

You bring up some good points. It seems like the world population is being kept in the dark.

Not really, we can see and hear them. It's been happening since Earth was born. It is what made Earth. Just more technology, people with camera phones, and the internet make it seem like there are more.

So, then, how do you explain this example....let's say you are a 50 year old that lives in Rockford, IL for your entire life and have never seen a large fireball that fragments and makes a sonic boom, but then in the past year, you've seen two, or even three. This is because that person has a cell phone or internet? Seriously? That's why all of a sudden this witness see's these fireballs? Okay then.

reply to post by Rezlooper


Starting to sound more like you're just upset that you've never personally seen one, yet others have not only seen one, but more than once.

First, let's look at how a Fireball is defined:

A fireball is a brighter-than-usual meteor. The International Astronomical Union defines a fireball as "a meteor brighter than any of the planets" (magnitude −4 or greater).

That's the official definition by the IAU. Other organizations have the definition meet a much higher magnitude of brightness to be defined as a "fireball"

If you do anymore reading in the above link, you'll see this:

There are probably more than 500,000 fireballs a year, but most will go unnoticed because most will occur over the ocean and half will occur during the daytime.

Half a million in a year. That's 1,369 per day.

That would seem to indicate that you (and others) should see many fireballs, all the time. But wait. Half of those might happen during the day, and at a low enough magnitude to not be visible (unless you happen to be looking directly at it).

Now factor in other things:

1) Weather: is it clear? Cloudy?
2) Where are you? What are you doing? Are you outside to see it? Are you not outside at the time?
3) What is it's magnitude? Was it bright enough to light up the sky (much rarer)? Or simply bright?
4) Do they occur at a more frequent time? (the answer is yes, after midnight your local time into the wee early morning hours.....about the same time you're told to go out and watch a meteor shower peaks). Were you in bed asleep?

Still, it would seem that it should happen more often for you, right? Well, let us think about that too:

Surface area of a sphere is: 4*Pi*r^2
So the surface area of the Earth is about 510,064,471 square kilometers

Visibility (not counting refraction of the atmosphere) is given as d= 3.75*sqrt (h), where "d" is the distance in kilometers and "h" is the height (in meters) of the observer. Let's say your height is 100 meters. You'll be able to see about 37.5 km to the horizon before the curve of the Earth blocks your view.
But the good news is these fireballs are high up in the atmosphere. Let's put one burning up at 50km in height.
We can then say: d= sqrt(2Rh+h^2) , where "d" is the farthest away you can be and see it, "R" is the Earth's radius, and "h" is the height of the object.

That means you can see if it you're almost 800 km away from it!

Ahhhh....but then go back up there and take a look at that number for the surface area of the Earth.

Then think about the number of fireballs again (1,369) but halve that again because of Day/Night....and of course weather......and what you maybe doing at that time.

Using those numbers, your odds drop quite a bit actually of catching sight of one. You can use Power Laws to figure out your chances.

Still, as you said: what are the odds?

The odds maybe quite low, however, odds being low does not make something impossible, only highly improbable. But just because something is highly improbable does not mean that it's IMPOSSIBLE for it to happen.

Sit down with a cup and use 5 six sided dice. Start rolling the dice. What are your chances of getting a Yahtzee (all 5 dice come up with the same number)? Chances are actually not that bad (and why there is a very popular game based upon this).
However, you can change the parameters: what are your odds of of rolling only odd number Yahtzees in a 24 hour period? Even numbered ones?

Again, the odds are not impossible....only highly improbable.

There are people on this Earth who win the multi-million dollar lotto.....not just once, but twice.

Meet Roy Sullivan. He's been struck by lighting. Not once.....or twice........but SEVEN times.

Again, nothing really dark and secret about it. If there is an actual increase in fireball activity (and not just an increase in reporting and population), then you should be happy: your odds of seeing one have improved.....if you're outside and not asleep (or other wise engaged in something else).....the weather is clear......and it happens during the night when it's dark (so you have a better chance of seeing it if it's a low magnitude one).

reply to post by eriktheawful


I don't dispute any of what you are saying. i don't dispute the numbers of fireballs. What I'm trying to say is that if it were a half million per year, maybe its a million now. My point is, the likelihood of people seeing them now versus several years ago is not because of better reporting, but due to a rise in frequency of these fireballs. You've made your points and they have been absorbed. I've made mine as well. Whether one chooses to believe that these sonic boom exploding fireballs are common and always have been, or have definitely increased in occurrence, is up to them at this point.

reply to post by Rezlooper


Isn't it obvious?

Signs in the heavens and on Earth.

Hell, we've got those tetrads coming up.

reply to post by Rezlooper


The Methane theory has good potential, although these objects coming in great frequency suggest something is disturbing the Oort Cloud surrounding the solar system... An incoming celestial object I think... Not on any doomsday kick though...

As we all know earth is our spaceship, and not only orbits the sun but travels into vast space since our entire solar system orbits the black hole at the center of the milky way
Measurements of gas velocities in the solar neighborhood show that the sun, and everything in its vicinity, orbits the galactic center at a speed of about 220 km/s

That means as we travel we come to new areas of space all the time which some of them might have debris (meteorites) from an old dramatic event in our galaxy such as a supernova or other major ''blasts''

Getting hit lately by certain types of meteorites that tend to explode, shows they might have the same ''ingredients'' so they might come from the same ''source''.
So we have entered a dirty area of our galaxy, and we will probably see more of them in the near future!

Add this to your list.

The asteroid that we got almost NO warning of, that boomed somewhere over the west coast of Africa, less than 48 hours ago(!):