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(meteorobs) 'sonic boom' and 'dust trail' reported with ontario canada fireball



http://shorl.com/gagryfredatipro

Strange light in sky a meteor . . . or was it? 

By Kris Ketonen - The Chronicle-Journal
Thunder Bay Ontario Canada 

March 11, 2003 

A Lakehead University professor says the strange
light seen in Thunder Bay’s skies Saturday was a
meteor, but some residents believe there was more
to it.

Stephen Kissin, a geology professor at Lakehead
and member of the Meteorites and Impacts Advisory
Committee to the Canadian Space Agency, said
reports of the ball of flame with the long,
smokey trail are consistent with the many meteors
that crash to earth each year.

A Lydia Avenue resident – who wished to remain
nameless — was one of the witnesses to the
night’s astral event. She was sitting in her
living room between 7 and 8 p.m., and happened to
glance out the west-facing main windows. And
that’s when she saw it.

It was rectangular, she said, with an orange,
with an orange glow. It moved very fast as it
streaked westward.

“It was too big to be a plane, that’s why I
noticed it,” she said yesterday, adding it also
“moved too fast to be a plane.”

The woman didn’t hear the loud bang reported by
residents near Finmark road, but her television
was on at the time, so the bang may have been
drowned out. The woman couldn’t guess as to how
high up the object was. The woman’s grandson also
witnessed the flight, while her husband got a
look at the plume of smoke left behind it.

Kissin said the smoke was actually a dust trail.
The woman said the dust remained for about an
hour, which Kissin said is possible, depending on
the wind.

“It sounds like it’s an isolated meteor
sighting,” Kissin said. “It was definitely down
in the lower atmosphere if it’s creating a sonic
boom, and leaving behind (a dust trail). That’s
certainly very typical.”

However, the object’s glow suggests it was still
fairly high up.   [....]




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