(meteorobs) Sunday evening fireball

[Skywayinc at aol.com]

I have fielded quite a few phone calls from the general public this morning, 
and have spoken to people, all of whom witnessed last night's fireball meteor 
(erroneously described as a "meteor shower") in the AP report printed below. 

One woman said it looked like it was " . . . about the size of a cantaloupe." 
 Another swore it was " . . . no higher than 100 feet above the ground."  And 
still another commented on how green the ball of fire appeared: "Like the 
ball shot out of a roman candle."  

I highly doubt that this object had anything to do with the Lyrid Meteor 
Shower.  The characteristics are all wrong; Lyrids are not known for producing 
brilliant fireballs like this.  More likely it was an erratic chunk of stone or 
iron, probably related to something out of the asteroid belt. 

This reminds me of another similarly bright fireball that swept across the 
Greater New York Skies almost exactly 39 years ago (April 25, 1966).  Amazingly, 
that object too became visible around the same time ~ 7:30 in the evening. 

Oh . . . PS . . . where was I on both occasions (1966 and last night)?  Of 
course, inside, watching television!   :(

-- joe rao 


April 25
Meteor Shower Surprises New England
BOSTON (AP) -- A meteor shower Sunday night sparked a flurry of frantic
phone calls to police departments across New England from people who saw
bright lights moving in the sky, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation
Administration said.
The meteor shower was seen as far north as Portland, Maine, and as far south
as Long Island. Some witnesses apparently mistook the meteor shower for a
plane crashing in Connecticut, the FAA's Holly Baker said.
"We've checked all around. There are no aircraft unaccounted for," she said.
The bright lights apparently came from the Lyrid meteor shower, which was
scheduled to be visible to the naked eye between April 20 and April 25, said
Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
"We're getting various descriptions of lights in the sky," he said.
"Everything from green lights to planes going down."
Firefighters in Branford, Conn., responded to several reports of a possible
plane crash in Long Island Sound in the Thimble Island area, but a search
did not turn up anything and was called off a short while later.
-- Associated Press