Possible meteorite impact in Mexico

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Hey, could some one verify this news? It may be a hoax but equally it might have happened. Any input from our Mexican members on the source reliability and such would be appreciated too.

The original article:

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/657918.html

Supuesto meteorito alerta en Hidalgo y Puebla

El Universal
PACHUCA Jueves 11 de febrero de 2010
00:01

Una luz acompañada de un estruendo, que cimbró casas y edificios de unos cinco municipios de Puebla e Hidalgo, fue atribuida a la caída de un meteorito.

El lugar del impacto habría sido el municipio de Ahuazotepec, Puebla, colindante con Cuautepec, Hidalgo, donde se derrumbó un puente y causó tensión entre la gente, según versiones de autoridades municipales.

Los hechos se registraron este miércoles al filo de las 18:30 horas entre ambas poblaciones, hasta donde llegó el Ejército para acordonar la zona.

El estruendo fue escuchado en Ahuazotepec y Huachinango, comunidades de Puebla, así como en Tulancingo, Cuautepec y Metepec, pertenecientes a Hidalgo.

El munícipe de Cuautepec, Eduardo Castelán, confirmó el evento, aunque más tarde dijo que no tenía datos precisos e incluso comentó que habría sido a las 15:30 horas.

Protección Civil de Hidalgo informó que las líneas de auxilio se habían colapsado con llamadas de gente atemorizada que pedía una explicación sobre qué estaba pasando, luego del estallido que rompió ventanas.

Agentes de seguridad de las tres demarcaciones hidalguenses, así como de Protección Civil y bomberos ''peinaron'' la zona; hasta la víspera no daban información concreta.

El director de Protección Civil estatal, Miguel García Conde, dijo haber recibido el reporte por lo cual se investigó en los aeropuertos las bitácoras ya que se temía un accidente aéreo; sin embargo, ''no hay ningún reporte sobre la pérdida de comunicación con alguna aeronave''. También se especuló sobre la explosión de ductos de Pemex.

And its English translation by modified IMTranslator 3.3.3-P:
(http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/2010/02/mexico-press-reports-suspected.html)

Supposed meteorite alert in Hidalgo y Puebla, Mexico

The place of the impact would have been the municipality of Ahuazotepec, It Populates, adjacent with Cuautepec, Hidalgo, where
it demolished a bridge and the people caused tension between
An accompanied light of a din, which cimbró houses and buildings of approximately five municipalities of Hidalgo y Puebla, it was attributed to the fall of a meteorite.

The place of the impact would have been the municipality of Ahuazotepec, It populates, adjacent with Cuautepec, Hidalgo, where a bridge collapsed and caused tension between the people, according to versions of municipal authorities.

The facts registered this Wednesday to the knife-edge of 18:30 hours between both populations, up to where the Army came to surround the zone.

The din was heard in Ahuazotepec and Huachinango communities.

It populates, as well as in Tulancingo, Cuautepec and Metepec, belonging to Hidalgo.

The munícipe of Cuautepec, Eduardo Castelán, he confirmed the event, although later he said that it did not have precise information and he even mentioned that there would be been at 15:30.

Civil protection of Hidalgo informed that the lines of help were colapsado with calls of the frightened people who was asking for an explanation on what was it happening, after the explosion that broke windows.

Safety agents of three demarcations hidalguenses, as well as of Civil Protection and firemen they "brushed" the zone; until eve
they were not giving concrete information.

The director of Civil state Protection, Miguel García Conde, said to have got the report for which was investigated in the airports
the binnacles since one was afraid of an air accident; nevertheless, " there is not no report on the loss of communication with some airship ".

Also it was speculated about on the explosion of pipelines of Pemex.


One reader and witness comments, "Hello, we are approximately 15 Km from Ahuazotepec, it was at about 3:30 p.m. the din it was impressive, when I go out of the house the echo kept on resounding between the hills. I hope they will inform us well about truthful form that is what it spent."


** Story needs confirmation. This may be a hoax or pipeline or bomb blast.

It would also be great to have a better translation, so to be able to post it on SOTT, provided that's not a hoax of course.
 
Psyche said:
It is a reliable report, and of a big one...

I'll second that. Thankfully missed having first-hand experience though...

Though there are of course many hoaxes involving ufo's(or not), I wouldn't guess there are that many of meteorites/comets.
 
This report is now up on SOTT news. There is some speculation that it could have been an aeroplane crash or an ammo dump explosion. Hopefully we'll get more details as the day progresses. :)


http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202798-Meteorite-Hits-Mexico
 
In the following forum, there are several eyewitness accounts:

http://foros.eluniversal.com.mx/w_detalle.html?tdi=162&rtdi=9299

Some describe a "metallic" fireball, a blue-ish or green aspect. One says that it lasted for 3-5 seconds. Others only heard the big roar.
 
Vulcan59 said:
This report is now up on SOTT news. There is some speculation that it could have been an aeroplane crash or an ammo dump explosion. Hopefully we'll get more details as the day progresses. :)


http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202798-Meteorite-Hits-Mexico

The news source which reported that there was a 30 meters crater (milenio.com), later published another story which said that officials didn't confirmed this and that there was no crater: http://www.milenio.com/node/379878 (spanish)

Hopefully there will be another update.
 
An audio in spanish with the purported account of a radio host called Lolo Meteoro (Meteor in spanish :jawdrop:) who while in the air sees the metorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWEm9wWNdD8

The account starts in 1:13: "No me vas a creer, acabo de ver una luz media extraña, medio rara asi en el...y se perdio de momento. ¿Quien sabe qué habrá sido? Algo raro, nunca me habia tocado ver algo así en el cielo y de momento se perdió.
[...] Te juro, vi una luz en el cielo, vi una luz, como una veces cuando vez un cometa que va a caer."

Translation:

"You are not going to believe me. I just saw a kind of strange light, kind of weird ... and by now it got lost. Who knows what it was? Something strange, it never had happened to me to see something like this in the sky and by now it got lost. [...] I swear I saw a light in the sky, I saw a light, like when you see a comet which is going to fall."

The show is from a radio in Puebla, Z 920.

FWIW
 
potamus said:
Another green exploding fireball? :huh:

If there is copper in the solid body, it will glow (burn) green - nothing mysterious about that.
 
Now the media comes out with this:

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_489802.html
Satellite debris over Mexico

'We think it was the space wreckage of a Russian satellite that was catalogued by the Department of Defence of the United States and which we knew could pass over Mexican territory,' said Fernando de la Peno, an engineer who is also a chief proponent of establishing a Mexican space agency.[...]

[...]Many said they felt the ground shake with the blast and some reported seeing a huge crater on the ground blown out by the fiery object. But nothing was found after a through search of the area on Thursday.

A satellite could cause this mess?

There were some witnesses that said that they saw a crater, and now the media says that there was no crater. IMO sound like damage control. Until now there are no pictures of this event at all. I'm from Mexico, and the media has tried to justify this in many ways - most of them with the satellite idea - or they expose it superficially, just like if was something casual.
 
Well, now we have the following update:

http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2010/02/mexico-cosmos-2421-was-culprit.html

Source: www.analuisacid.com
Date: 02.12.10

Mexico: Cosmos 2421 Was The Culprit

Prof. Ana Luisa Cid, following up on developments in the story of the "Hidalgo Crash", informed us today at 3:02 pm Eastern Time that the Mexican Space Agency (AEXA) has determined that "Cosmos 2421, a Russian naval reconnaissance satellite placed in orbit on June 25, 2006, broke up in February 2008 leaving 15 fragmetns. These fragments were catalogued by NORAD as space junk. An analysis of Fragment 33006 of Cosmos 2421 allowed its reentry to be predicted on February 10, 2010...."

Mexican television has carried the story as well. The video (in Spanish) can be seen at _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBtFTtV6eMI
 
This came before the satellite story version:

http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2010/02/mexico-what-crashed-in-hidalgo.html

INEXPLICATA recieved a message yesterday morning from Contributing Editor Ana Luisa Cid regading the collision of an unexplained object in the state of Hidalgo (central Mexico) -- initial excitement over an "extraterrestrial" event was replaced with more conservative comments about "Soviet-era space junk", "meteorites" and even "an explosion in a local mine"

News items received today read thus: "Meteorite allegedly left a hole 30 meters in diameter and caused houses and buildings to shake in five municipalities of Hidalgo and Puebla.

At 18:30 hours on Wednesday, [February 10, 2010] a light accompanied by a powerful rport caused homes and buildings to shake throughout five municipalities in [the states of] Puebla and Hidalgo. The event was attributed to a meteorite impact.

The thunderous impact was heard in Ahuazotepec and Huachinango, communities in Puebla, as well as in Tulancingo, Cuautepec and Metepec, in the state of Hidalgo.

According to latest reports, the meteorite caused a bridge to collapse in the municipality of Cuautepec (Hidalgo) without any material or human losses reported.

State Civil protection reported that emergency phone lines collapsed due to the number of frightened citizens asking for an explanation about what was going on, after the detonation caused windows to shatter.

The agency's director, Miguel Garcia Conde, said that flight logs were checked at airports when the report was received, out of concern for an airplane crash, however "there was no report regarding a loss of communication with any airliner."

Military units cordoned off the area where the 30-meter hole was found - produced by the meteor impact - as oil pipelines belonging to PEMEX cross the area.

(Translation (c) 2010, S. Corrales. Special thanks to Ana Luisa Cid and El Economista.com.mx)

Of course, only minutes after posting this news item to the site, a message rejecting the "meteorite" theory was received - and rejecting the affirmations that a 30-meter hole was proof of the impact.

The following was reported by Publicaciones NorOeste - México (http://www.noroeste.com.mx/publicaciones.php?id=556316) and reads thus:

Intrigue Over "Space Junk"
What fell in Hidalgo was neither a UFO nor a meteorite (02.12.2010)


MÉXICO (UNIV) -- Scientists consider that it was either a bolide or the remains of a satellite. To many, it was a smokescreen employed by the government to levy new taxes, or even a crashed UFO that is now in the hands of NASA. Ufologist Jaime Maussán took it all very seriously and sent a reporter to the area to commence "an investigation" to be presented on his Sunday "Tercer Milenio" program.

The stories agree that the "fireball" allegedly witnessed by residents of municipalities in Hidalgo and Puebla had a cosmic origin. However, it was impossible to record it or photograph it. The bolide crossed the atmosphere in fractions of a second. A loud sound was heard first, followed by a reddish light. Thousandths of seconds later, no one knew what became of it.

When advised of these reports, Daniel Flores, a researcher for the UNAM Astronomical Institute and an expert in space debris and meteoritics, said that the so-called "fireball" has all the traits of a bolide, that is to say, a mass of cosmic matter than, as it moves between the planets, eventually crosses the atmosphere in a matter of seconds without reaching the ground, unlike meterorites that do crash.

News of the fireball sighting, followed by an explosion recorded on Wednesday afternoon in Tulancingo del Valle, Hidalgo, y Ahuazatepec, Puebla caused elements of the fire departments and Civil Protection agencies to mobilize. The rumor caused Miguel Garcia Conde, Director of Civil Protection in Hidalgo, to complain about having spent 24 sleepless hours over what he qualified as a "very serious error by the media" since the object was dubbed a meteorite.

The so-called "fireball" gave rise to all manner of speculation on the Internet. 24 hours after residents saw the bolide, the news item already had 140,000 links on the Google search engine.

Speculation was rife: that it had left a crater 30 meters in diameter and that the army was unable to find the enormous hole produced. Others concluded that it was a rumor similar to that of the "Chupacabras"
 
One would think that there would be a record of some seismic activity, in the area. A riple effect recorded, to due what ever created the strike . But I found no such recorded! :huh:
 
There is an interesting discussion on Bad Astronomy, and what's interesting, they rather exclude the Russian satellite Cosmos 2421 option:

Comment 41, 42:
My calcs on the Cosmos 2421 debris (the one due to reenter on that day) do not place it anywhere near Mexico at the time given in the article. [picture]

They also couldn't find any seismic activity records.

One sighting account (Comment 43):

just thought I would mention that a guy I know in mexico actually saw the thing in the air, he said:

x says: (10:57:50 PM)
i was going in car to the studio
x says: (10:58:00 PM)
and at a street light, i turn my head to the sky
x says: (10:58:21 PM)
and i see a crazily shining object, flying , crossing the sky at a speed that i never seen before in my life
x says: (10:58:45 PM)
i only saw a piece of it, between the buildings, it crossed really fast, less than a second
x says: (10:59:11 PM)
it was one hell of a view man
x says: (10:59:13 PM)
so bright
x says: (10:59:18 PM)
it was like a small sun
x says: (10:59:26 PM)
flying faster than any concorde
 
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