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(meteorobs) [IMO-News] Re: Fireball Kansas 10/13...0025 GMT
Below is a quoted eyewitness report from Hays, Kansas, USA, of the
Friday evening (October 13 local time) twilight fireball over Texas,
Oklahoma, and Kansas. This is a track of several hundred kilometers.
There is a brief TV station news story, "Thousands see UFO Friday
night", with a photo from Abilene, Texas, at this location:
http://www.ktxs.com/
It was briefly reported on the 10:00 p.m. local news on two stations
here, and I've also heard that it was on the 10:00 local news in
Oklahoma as well.
To say the least -- I wish I'd seen it!
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexasdot edu - Austin, Texas, USA
From the SeeSat mailing list Hypermail archive:
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Oct-2000/0210.html
> We are new to this list so forgive us if we make some faux pas but we
> saw the object last night and thought someone might be able to make
> some educated guesses as to what it was based on our descriptions.
>
> We live in Hays, Kansas, USA, not far from the geographic center of
> the US. Sorry, don't know the lat/long. It was shortly after 7:00
> p.m. Central time. The object was on the southern horizon and its
> path was from roughly southwest to northeast. The sun had just set
> below the horizon but it was still light out. As it climbed from the
> southern horizon, we noticed a bright object with a heavy contrail.
> We have lots of jets flying over Kansas so it isn't all that unusual
> to see the sun reflecting off of the jet with its contrail behind it.
> But most of these jets are flying in a east/west or vice versa
> direction. We soon realized it was not a jet, as it was going too
> fast. As climbed into the sky relative to our position, it began to
> break apart. Some of the pieces glowed bluish green, pink, and
> reddish orange. At apogee, we noticed two bright objects ahead of
> the main contrail and these two continued to track northeast until
> they disappeared. The whole episode lasted maybe a minute. Its was
> at about a 45 degree angle to the horizon and went approximately 3/4
> of the way from the southern horizon to the northern. There was no
> sound associated with it. The contrail remained in the sky for many
> minutes afterward and in fact was still there as the sky darkened
> about 5 or 10 minutes later. I suppose it could have been a meteor
> but our money is on it being a piece of space junk.
>To: International Meteor Group <imo-news@imodot net>
>From: Fritz Kruse <vortex@dodgecitydot net>
>Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 12:03:47 -0500
>Subject: [IMO-News] Fireball Kansas 10/13...0025 GMT
>
>Hi, I am new to the list. I work for the National Weather Service in
>Dodge City, KS. We were flooded with calls at 730 pm CDT about an object
>that had streaked across the sky from southwest toward northeast.
>
>Many said it sparked, heard noise, was orange, was blue, broke up into
>about 10 fragments, produced a contrail, did not appear to reach ground.
>
>We went out to take a look at the sky and observed an unusual contrail,
>described as two intertwined trails with regular bumps or puffs every
>1/4 mile or in a general straight line path with curves. The trail was
>almost overhead but slightly east in the sky. The contrail did not seem
>very high, probably 10,000 to 20,000 ft. Reports say the contrail was
>observed from northeast Oklahoma and stopped near Hill City, KS.
>
>I just saw the event on the Weather Channel, and to me it looked like a
>fireball or bright meteor.
>
>Can someone confirm if this event was a fireball?
>
>Thanks, Fritz
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