Giant Meteor Fireball Explodes Over Northwest U.S

[Cyre2067]

_http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080221-oregon-meteor.html

John Roach
for National Geographic News
February 21, 2008

A meteor zipped across the U.S. Pacific Northwest sky early Tuesday morning before exploding, possibly littering eastern Oregon with marble- to basketball-size space rocks, an expert says.

Impact sites are yet to be found, according to Richard Pugh, a scientist with the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory at Portland State University in Oregon.

Pugh is coordinating a search for potential meteorites. He said 40 to 50 eyewitnesses have contacted his lab to report the fireball.

According to the reports, the event happened around 5:30 a.m. PT on Tuesday. The meteor was first spotted over Washington State moving in an east-southeast direction.

"The light was bright enough to wake up people even though the shades were pulled, and then the sonic boom hit, rattling windows and making the dust fly, and the dogs crawled under the bed," Pugh said.

"And following the heavy boom, in a number of cases we have rumbling a few minutes later. This kind of sound effect usually indicates there are rocks on the ground."

Pugh added that descriptions of the explosion suggest the meteor was rocky and likely sprayed debris over several square miles.

Finding Fragments

Preliminary analysis of the reports indicates any surviving rock fragments are located in the prairie outside the town of Pendleton, Oregon, or in the nearby Blue Mountains (see map).

Given the likely small size of any impacting fragments in a rural area, chances of recovery are slim, Pugh noted.

"Our hope is that somebody got a rock through a barn roof out there somewhere," he said.

(See related photo: "Mysterious Space

Kinda disturbing, didn't catch it on sott or the forum though. Prob just missed it.

 

[Cyre2067]

_http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=webmeteor19m&date=20080219

There's a link for video footage of a meteorite distinigrating on the right where it say AP video | Raw video: Meteor sighting

It's a different meteorite though, one in boise...

 

[Mark7]

Anybody else wondering if there's a connection between all these meteorite sightings of late and the shooting down of the wayward satellite? Target practice getting ready for a shot that might really count? Is it even possible to shoot down something not in an earth orbit and traveling so very fast and would it do more harm than good? Is the shooting down of the satellite totally unrelated and part of some other nefarious skullduggery?

 

[Cyre2067]

Undoubtedly more is going on then meets the eye. I did notice several people who thought the aforementioned fireball was a satellite shot down. It seems to be a good cover story: tell them we're shooting down satellites, if they see a meteor they'll think satellite before natural phenomenon.

 

[JonnyRadar]

cyre, looks like it was posted here on the 19th (?)

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/149309-Meteor-sighted-in-Clark-County-region

also, i found this (from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004503.html), as the recent stray chunks fell in oregon, thought it was an interesting synchronicity...

The largest meteorite found in the United States is the Willamette meteorite (found in Oregon, weight ca. 15 tons), but large portions of this meteorite weathered away before it was found. Its weight as it struck the ground may have been 20 tons.