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(meteorobs) 'Bizarre' fireball lights up sky, emergency lines
ow our newspapers handle an event!
Mike
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Thursday, October 28, 1999 Back The Halifax Herald Limited
'Bizarre' fireball lights up sky, emergency lines
By Barry Dorey / Staff Reporter
A spectacular fireball passed over the Maritimes on Wednesday, rattling
windows, lighting up the night sky and sparking a deluge of
phone calls to emergency crews.
There were unconfirmed reports that pieces of meteorite struck the Oyster
Pond area of the Eastern Shore, and northern New
Brunswick, where a fire was reported near St-Quentin.
Fire crews could not be reached, but nobody in the New Brunswick town's
all-night gas station had heard or seen anything.
The light show, described as comet-like and accompanied by sonic booms,
had police and Rescue Co-ordination Centre officials
scrambling after calls starting flooding in at about 9:30 p.m.
Callers feared an airplane was on fire or a satellite might be
disintegrating over the area, but those concerns were quickly discounted.
Air traffic controllers in Moncton reported that two planes in the area
saw "a fireball of some sort lasting about 12 seconds," said
military spokesman Lt.-Cmdr. Glenn Chamberlain.
But no aircraft had reported trouble and the North American Air Defence
Command had not tracked any falling man-made debris such
as satellites, he said.
The first report was a 911 call from Liverpool shortly before 9:30 p.m.
and calls were soon coming from Yarmouth to Cape Breton and
as far west as Quebec.
Maureen Elm of Stewiacke said the fireball appeared to pass immediately
overhead and her daughter heard a boom to the west a few
seconds later.
"It sounded like it hit and it rattled our windows here at home," she
said.
Dave Dawe, duty manager at Halifax International Airport, said he saw the
flash and thought it was a flare.
"It was bizarre, everything lit up."
Parrsboro resident Donald Lake saw a "bright yellow ball and a long tail"
streak across the sky.
"I've seen shooting stars before, but this thing was in our atmosphere."
Astronomer David Lane, a professor at Saint Mary's University, said
witnesses probably felt the shock wave of explosions when the
meteor began fragmenting, rather than the rattle of impact.
But he said a similar show over Montreal two years ago littered small
fragments east of the city.
Wednesday's display was not part of a scheduled or expected meteor shower,
he said.
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