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(meteorobs) "Meteor shower" over England, June 11, 1998?



I browsed Meteorobs archives for June and July 1998 to see if
there was some mention of this, but I didn't find anything.
It's a BBC report of a "meteor shower" (?!) that seems to 
have occurred over England around 23:00 (and thereafter?) on 
June 11, 1998.  

http://news.bbc.codot uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_111000/111380.stm

] Blazing bright blue objects in the sky which sparked a 
] flying saucer alert across much of England are being 
] dismissed as a meteor shower by the government. 
]
] The objects were spotted by hundreds of people from Devon 
] to the Midlands for several hours from about 2300 on 
] Thursday. 
]
] They were seen both as one big light and a group of smaller 
] lights, travelling in a northeasterly direction ....

The story is self-contradictory, and I'm kind of surprised to
see a Ministry of Defence spokesman being quoted as saying, 
"Initial reports suggest it was an unusually large meteor 
shower which takes place when material and debris from outer 
space comes through the upper atmosphere.  When the material 
passes from a zero-gravity zone into the gravity of the upper 
atmosphere, it burns up because of the friction.  It is not 
unusual on a smaller scale, but last night's shower seems to 
have been quite big."  

But the story seems to have a kernel of something interesting,
so I was wondering what anyone on Meteorobs might know about
it.  I checked Alan Pickup's satellite decay predictions for 
that date but didn't find any likely suspects.

Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexasdot edu - Austin, Texas, USA

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