Watchers gaze up in wonder as light flashes across sky
Laura Drake and Elise Stolte, with files from Jamie Hall, The Edmonton Journal; with files from Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Nov. 21st 2008, Published: 11:55 am
EDMONTON - It looked like a missile, one man said, and lit up the evening sky bright as midday, said another, and, as it blazed over the city and across the Prairies, it flashed colours that ran the spectrum.
Hundreds in Edmonton and perhaps thousands across Western Canada saw a flaming object flash across the sky Thursday evening.
People described it as green, yellow, purple or blue, and said it appeared as either an explosion or an object streaking through the sky.
Andrew Bartlett, 63, was trying to film planes passing over his 10th-floor apartment at 103rd Street and Jasper Avenue when he saw what looked like a bright ball of flame.
He held his camera steady and caught two seconds of it on tape. The object seemed to burn out just before it reached the horizon.
"The right place at the right time. It's a million-in-one chance," Bartlett said, marvelling at the video and his good fortune.
Adam Baxter, a peace officer with the Town of Devon, also caught the object on video. He was near the end of his shift when he saw the fiery light through his vehicle's windshield. He quickly hit a button on his front dash camera.
The camera continually records, and the button activates a feature that saves the last 30 seconds of whatever it was pointed at.
"It's just like, wow, what was that?" he said. "I was more shocked than anything."
Since he was only 15 kilometres away from the airport, he thought it might be a plane falling out of the sky, and had to check with colleagues at the office.
"When I first saw it, it kind of looked like a shooting star," he said. "Then it got bigger and exploded into this ball of flame. Definitely not just your shooting star."
Edmonton International Airport spokesman Jim Rudolph said "the skies east of the airport lit up" at 5:27 p.m.
Sightings came from across the Prairies; from as far south as Medicine Hat and as far north as Beauval, Sask., 600 kilometres from Edmonton.
Marcel Gobeil, who lives on a farm west of Beaumont, was in his living room when he heard what he describes as a "loud boom," followed by a bright, colourful light in the sky.
"At first, I thought it was fireworks," said Gobeil. "I've never seen anything like it; it was green and blue and then turned to bright red. It was pretty big."
Gobeil said he thought the object hit the ground about 10 seconds later.
"It seemed like it fell on Beaumont, but it's more likely it landed in Manitoba or Saskatchewan if it was a meteorite," he said.
Although many witnesses who contacted The Journal claimed to see something land, that was likely an optical illusion, said Chris Herd, an associate professor in the University of Alberta's department of earth and atmospheric sciences, and curator of the university's meteorite collection.
"What we probably saw was a fireball, which is the result of a rock coming into the atmosphere," he said.
Though the fireball was a bright light several kilometres up in the sky, it would have appeared much closer to anyone who saw it.
"What we know about fireballs is that they're bright burning up for a certain amount of time in the atmosphere, but then they stop burning brightly. If there's a rock that continues after that, it's falling in dark flight," Herd said.
Herd said fireballs are common, but don't generally happen over populated areas.
"Something as bright as this is pretty rare," he said.
Shawn Mitchler was pumping gas at Family Confectionery on Highway 16 at Radisson, about 60 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon, when the sky flashed green and yellow.
"It seemed like fireworks or a missile coming down," said Mitchler, who estimates the light show lasted five to 10 seconds. "My heart just started racing because I didn't know what it was."
If something did hit the ground, Herd said, it would be an exciting find.
"It's not often that something actually lands and is found, because of all the factors that are working against you," he said.
The frozen space rock itself wasn't on fire, said Richard Huziak of Saskatoon, a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
"They're moving anywhere from about 30 up to about 70 kilometres per second. That's about 200-and-some-thousand kilometres per hour. When they hit the atmosphere, they burn by friction. The atmosphere heats up and ionizes all the gas around it. You've got very high temperatures -- tens of thousands of degrees for a few seconds."
Huziak thinks the meteorite likely landed somewhere near the Alberta border. It may be possible to determine a more precise location. Fireball video cameras designed to begin recording when a bright light appears in the sky are located in Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Edmonton and Calgary.
Few meteorites cause damage, because the rocks often disintegrate as they travel through the atmosphere.
Herd suggested witnesses contact the Canadian Space Agency's meteorites and impacts advisory committee (_http://miac.uqac.ca).
ldrake @ thejournal.canwest.com
