Bright flash in the sky - suffolk uk

[RedFox]

Well I wasn't sure if this was significant or not, but given time is getting "short" I thought it worth reporting.
In the southern sky at about 10.15pm, at roughly an angle of 30 degrees me and my girlfriend saw (whilst I was driving) a bright flash of light in the sky.
She described it as a blue white flash/ball of light. I saw it and at first thought it was a plane flashing, but it flashed once and was (in retrospect as my eyes where on the road) 100 times brighter than a plane. I asked everyone in the car to look for any other flashes for the rest of the journey, and nothing was seen.

My suspicion (and given I've only ever read about it but not seen it) was that it could have been a high altitude (fortunately!) cometry explosion.........which is really quite worrying but following the signs not supprising. My question is do you think it was a high altitude cometry explosion, or am I being overly paranoid??

 

[Turgon]

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUh7pYDmK08&feature=related

Is what you saw similar to what is in this video? From your description, it seems fairly close.

 

[RedFox]

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUh7pYDmK08&feature=related

Is what you saw similar to what is in this video? From your description, it seems fairly close.

Close (colour is similar)...but also not. I now realise how hard it is to convey something I saw without others having a frame of reference.
OK, let me give this a go.

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nCLFO82qNw shows a guy using hho to weld with. It was very close to this colour/intensity. Blue white.
Have you ever seen an electric arc welder in operation?
You have to look at it through a visor because the light is so intense it will damage your eyes. It leaves an after image if you close your eyes.

Imagine being in a darkened room, and about 60 meters from you someone welds in one spot for about 1 second.
Its sudden, a single point of light and blue white. Its intense and leaves an after image. You feel it.

This had the same effect but was (presumably) at least as high as a plane, the flash was a small point of light (hence why I half thought it was a plane light flashing), but had a similar intensity to a welding arc and was blue white. It 'felt' electrical.
It didn't quite leave an after image but it felt like it should have......I felt it as well as saw it (subjective I know but this is the subtle bit that's hard to convey).....it made you notice it.
Me and my girlfriend both said 'woah!' almost instantly.......

Its like having a large explosion go off, close enough for a shock wave.....yet the shockwave is invisible and silent. You just feel it.....
Gamma/xrays rays perhaps?

Its something I've never seen before in many years of looking at the sky.

 

[Adaryn]

There's a video of a meteorite / flash of light seen in Poland on the 31st May. It's mentionned in this thread.

 

[RedFox]

There's a video of a meteorite / flash of light seen in Poland on the 31st May. It's mentionned in this thread.

Interesting indeed.
The video isn't the same as what I saw (although it seems video cameras can't quite pick these things up the same way the human eye does). But the flash part fits.
If it was closer it could well have been blinding flash like Poland.
Interestingly it occurred an hour and a half before my sighting, on the same latitude (different longitude)......unable to estimate how far away it was, it could have been over England, France, Spain or maybe as far as Africa?

 

[Turgon]

Here's what NASA has to say about Meteors:

_http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/meteor_worldbook.html

A meteor appears when a particle or chunk of metallic or stony matter called a meteoroid enters the earth's atmosphere from outer space. Air friction heats the meteoroid so that it glows and creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles. The gases include vaporized meteoroid material and atmospheric gases that heat up when the meteoroid passes through the atmosphere. Most meteors glow for about a second.
Most meteoroids disintegrate before reaching the earth. But some leave a trail that lasts several minutes. Meteoroids that reach the earth are called meteorites.

Two days ago, I was driving home from work and saw an interesting cloud formation that looked like a funnel. I saw a glowing object just underneath it (from my vantage point and vision - the funnel and object could have been a long distance away from each other). I thought it was a star, because it seemed stationary, but after a little while I noticed it was either growing, or moving farther away from the funnel. After a few minutes it was huge, almost in a V shape. It was orange in colour, but that could have been because the sun was setting behind it.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=11057.0 - In this thread, its mentioned that a group of Meteors called the Leonids are supposed to pass us by, could this may be a precursor to the event, or a sign of what's to come.

 

[weasel3d]

Just read this concerning 'fireball' events. http://www.space.com/news/090610-military-fireballs.html

In short:
"A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned.

The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists.

The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified. "

 

[anart]

Hi weasel, you might want to see this - http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12531.msg90368#msg90368

 

[weasel3d]

thanks for the redirect, Anart!