(meteorobs) Sunday evening fireball

[Michael Clark]

CBS Radio News early this morning quoted from the AP story and embellished
it to the point that I momentarily started to think this was some kind of
outburst. Then they advised listeners to go out again tonight to enjoy this
"celestial light show."

Ironically Joe, turn off your TV week starts today.  www.tvturnoff.org

Michael Clark


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Skywayinc at aol.com>
To: <undisclosed-recipients:>
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 8:19 AM
Subject: (meteorobs) Sunday evening fireball


> 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
> ---
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