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July 7, 1999
Fiiled at 10:27 a.m. EDT
Meteor Explodes Above New Zealand
By The Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New
Zealand (AP) -- A meteor exploded in the sky
above New Zealand
on Wednesday, casting an eerie blue light and
showering the
earth with fragments from space.
The explosion
at 4:15 p.m. (1:15 a.m. EDT) was followed by smoke and
a flood of phone
calls from people who saw the meteor streaking across
the sky, the
Carter Observatory in Wellington said. No injuries were
reported.
``It was picked
up by aircraft and on radar, so we've had some air traffic
controllers
calling too,'' said John Field, the observatory's public
programs officer.
The meteor was
likely to have been either metal or rock and was
probably as
big as a car, Field said. A rock meteor would have broken
up into a shower
of stones as it came through the atmosphere. On
average, one
meteor falls to Earth each week, he said.
Police said hundreds
of people reported seeing the meteor over a remote
part of New
Zealand's North Island -- between the cities of Napier on
the east coast
and New Plymouth on the west coast.
After a loud
explosion, the meteor apparently broke up in the
atmosphere,
leaving a vapor trail and blue cloud hanging, police said.
Reports of objects
falling to the ground were received across the region,
police said,
but no pieces have been reported found.
Brendon Bradley,
an instructor with the New Plymouth Aero Club, said
he was flying
when he saw the meteor.
``It was just
a bright light, exactly like a flare,'' he said. ``Afterwards
there was smoke
in the sky.''
Other witnesses
described a bright flash, followed by an explosion and a
cloud of brown
smoke.
``A big fiery
ball came down. There was a terrific red glow and it sort of
went pop,''
said Eric Ray, a resident of the town of Te Aroha.
One man told
police the explosion sounded like a natural gas tanker
igniting.