Meteorite falls in Bingöl, Turkey

[bozadi]

While I was checking news reports about latest meteoric events in Turkey through Google, I realized that a meteroite had fallen in the city of Bingöl (Eastern Turkey) about three days ago on September 2, 2015 at about 23:06 (Local time). This is the date and time displayed on a security camera footage. Several online Turkish news sites mention the incident and the date and time appears to be correct.

A security camera (of a restaurant, it is stated in some reports) shows the light produced by the falling object as reflected on a street.

_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xksft_i4pBU

I think the camera was not recording sounds, or the news reporters failed to properly capture the image and sound from the PC/monitor shown in the video. If I come across a better video/image, I would certainly like to share it here.

An excerpt from one of the news reports on the event, in translation, from _http://www.ilkha.com/haber/21016/bingole-goktasi-dustu/:

Fall of a meteorite which was identified to have fallen near Sarıçiçek Village, Central Bingöl, was recorded by a security camera.

Last night at 23.06, a meteor shower was observed in many cities in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian regions including Bingöl, Elazığ, Muş, Diyarbakır, Tunceli, Erzurum and other surrounding cities. Easily observed with naked eye, the shower illuminated the sky, and some citizens were scared due to the light and the humming sound emitted by the object.

The cities mentioned are neighboring cities. The ones named are approximately contained in the bigger red circle while the city in which the footage was recorded is shown in the smaller circle in the following image (I tried to show the mentioned cities approximately on a Google map of Turkey):

_http://s27.postimg.org/n0ao85ktv/meteorite.jpg

If the incident was really observed in such a relatively wide area, then it is surprising that this news report has not been covered sufficiently in the Turkish media as far as I am aware of it. And only one footage? Most of the people in Turkey do not care about such things.

In a second news report on the event from the same news site (_http://www.ilkha.com/haber/21053/goktasinin-dustugu-koy-sakinleri-konustu/), explanations of one of the villagers are given. An excerpt:

Mehmet Nezir Ergün, one of the dwellers of Sarıçiçek Village, said that a great light beam covered the village the previous night, “All the village was illuminated as if it was daytime. We first thought that it was an armed conflict because it sounded like that to us. Then it sounded as if it was hailing on the roofs of houses. We could not understand what exactly it was. But on the following morning, we saw that meteroites had fallen on the roofs of our houses.”

Explaining that he made an internet search on the incident on that morning, Ergün said, “I talked to an associate professor from Bingöl University. He said there is no such branch of science in their university to study it. He placed a call to one of his engineer friends. According to his engineer friend, the stones might be chemically dangerous to touch. But the children of the village are touching them since the morning time. I did too. As these stones are from outer space, I was curious about their smell and I did smell them. We do not know if these stones are hazardous in any way. We expect officials to investigate the incident.”

Some photos of the very small pieces of meteorites found by villagers as shared in the news reports on this specific event:

_http://www.ajans12gazetesi.com/files/uploads/g%C3%B6kta%C5%9F%C4%B1.jpg
_http://www.ilkha.com/files/gallery/big/32af60f188320e5ff0ba.jpg
_http://www.bingolunsesi.com.tr/files/uploads/g%C3%B6kta%C5%9F%C4%B1%20%284%29.jpg

 

[bozadi]

Another security camera footage obviously related to the same incident. Low quality, unfortunately.

_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-txgbXXyjY

 

[Niall]

Thanks bozadi, I put an article together for Sott:

http://www.sott.net/article/301174-Sott-Exclusive-Meteor-fireball-explodes-over-eastern-Turkey-sending-shower-of-meteorites-to-the-ground

 

[Chu]

Thanks bozadi! Good catch, and very interesting.

I read this after publishing one about a possible meteorite that caused an explosion in Argentina.
http://es.sott.net/article/40922-Conmocion-Un-meteorito-produjo-un-incendio-en-Cordoba

Several witnesses claim to have seen a meteor, trail, etc., flying directly into the ground, and then causing the explosion.

It seems that recently, a lot of these events are happening, including this possibility in some of the recent explosions in China, Japan, etc.? Not only "fireballs in the sky", but actual hits.

 

[bozadi]

I found a better resolution (480p) version of the second security camera footage above.

_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihyv6adDOnQ

It seems that the poster of this better version is the original poster as I understand from a short explanation he makes as the first comment to his own video.

The title of the youtube video in English is:"The Meteor Event Observed in the Eastern Anatolian Region (Elazığ) Sept 02, 2015, 23:09"

The city of Elazığ is the southwestern neighbor of Bingöl.

The information that the poster named Murat Bahçeci provides as a comment (the first comment) to his video post: "I extracted the footage from the security camera of my work place today. I now search for other video records with more detail especially from those cameras which face the East."

By the way, I noticed two or three Turkish twitter users who claim that on that day (Sept 2) at midnight this meteoric event was observed even from the western regions of Turkey as far as the cities of Balıkesir and Niğde. I do not know how much realistic this claim is. Maybe there were multiple meteoric events (all connected?) around that time on that night. But such little amount of news coverage and discussion of it! It is almost maddening!

By the way, while I was searching about this event, I came across another possible meteor footage from Istanbul, Turkey, in an instagram account which was published on August 25, 2015, I think. (I am not sure about the date of the instagram posts, I could not find any date reference, but the one in his twitter acount is dated 25th of August).

_https://instagram.com/p/60qZtuOjsA/ (photo)

He commented next to the photo, in translation: "I think I was the only one who recorded that meteor with a Note 3 :)"

_https://instagram.com/p/60GjkAujoU/ (video)

His comment: "An unknown sky object. This is either a meteor or something different. It has a fiery tail and it falls to Earth."

The instagram video is 13 seconds long and it repeats itself. The footage seemed authentic to me. It seems like a meteor.

In his twitter account, in one of his posts dated 25 August, he says: "A meteor fell to Turkey in the evening hours and there is no single line of news report about it!" He then references to some popular newspapers and says he also possesses video of it. I do not know if he has a longer or better video other than the one he posted in instagram. If I manage to contact him, I will ask about it.

 

[bozadi]

Thanks bozadi, I put an article together for Sott:

http://www.sott.net/article/301174-Sott-Exclusive-Meteor-fireball-explodes-over-eastern-Turkey-sending-shower-of-meteorites-to-the-ground

I am happy for that Niall :) I hope that more discussion and information is provided about it.

 

[bozadi]

Thanks bozadi! Good catch, and very interesting.

I read this after publishing one about a possible meteorite that caused an explosion in Argentina.
http://es.sott.net/article/40922-Conmocion-Un-meteorito-produjo-un-incendio-en-Cordoba

Several witnesses claim to have seen a meteor, trail, etc., flying directly into the ground, and then causing the explosion.

It seems that recently, a lot of these events are happening, including this possibility in some of the recent explosions in China, Japan, etc.? Not only "fireballs in the sky", but actual hits.

Wow, I was not aware of it, Chu. Thank you. It seems that Argentina has been witnessing some of the most striking meteorite impact events in recent years. Other than the most recent event, had not a woman died in a probable meteorite impact event in Monte Grande in 2011?

 

[Chu]

Thanks bozadi! Good catch, and very interesting.

I read this after publishing one about a possible meteorite that caused an explosion in Argentina.
http://es.sott.net/article/40922-Conmocion-Un-meteorito-produjo-un-incendio-en-Cordoba

Several witnesses claim to have seen a meteor, trail, etc., flying directly into the ground, and then causing the explosion.

It seems that recently, a lot of these events are happening, including this possibility in some of the recent explosions in China, Japan, etc.? Not only "fireballs in the sky", but actual hits.

Wow, I was not aware of it, Chu. Thank you. It seems that Argentina has been witnessing some of the most striking meteorite impact events in recent years. Other than the most recent event, had not a woman died in a probable meteorite impact event in Monte Grande in 2011?

Yes, and the Monte Grande event also created an explosion. The media tried to blame it on human failure, but hundreds of people even demonstrated in the streets saying that they knew what they had seen: a fireball right before the explosion. Of course, and unfortunately, not giving it the proper attention and reporting, there's more room for "conspiracy theories", and then people started speculating about UFOs, a government craft, etc. But before all that, witnesses were positive that it had been a meteorite hit. Just like the witness accounts you've been finding about this one in Turkey. Except this one is harder to deny, I think. The footage is pretty impressive.

 

[Persej]

The media tried to blame it on human failure, but hundreds of people even demonstrated in the streets saying that they knew what they had seen: a fireball right before the explosion. Of course, and unfortunately, not giving it the proper attention and reporting, there's more room for "conspiracy theories", and then people started speculating about UFOs, a government craft, etc. But before all that, witnesses were positive that it had been a meteorite hit.

And the best way to solve that problem is to do it like in Russia - put the camera in every car. That's the reason why we have so many wonderful videos of Chelyabinsk meteor. I think it really pays off to have a camera in your car in these interesting times.