There are a few things left out of the report.
Duration of the event, distance from his location, angle of decent,
speed and azimuth. If the guy witnessed the entire event from beginning
to end and the fireball was very far away at first sighting, that
explains why he may not have heard the boom. It could be that it reached
the retardation point long before coming close to him. The whistling
noise reported is also intriguing.
The report does NOT state that the ball of fire hit the water. Only that
he witnessed a ball of fire.
EXCERPT:
"The shape of it, it was just too perfect to be a piece of junk. It
looked just like a miniature comet, pretty much," he said. "It was
really, really white with blue flames. It was pretty wild."
Butler said he didn't hear the boom, only a whistling roar as the object
flew past. The wind-blown water was really choppy, he added, but he
could see the splash when it landed.."
He did give a clue as to the direction of travel although it is
extremely vague as he doesn't say which direction he was looking but
rather the direction he was traveling (SOUTH). He stated the object was
"..coming right at my car.."
He could have been looking East or West or in his rear-view mirror for
that matter.
The point is it's a eye-witness report, and it's interesting enough to
investigate further.
Even if it does turn out to be nothing.
Eric
Chris Peterson wrote:
Well, "not a chance" isn't very scientific. I should have said "a
really, really, really small chance". And the chance I'm referring to
is that he witnessed an impact. From the description, it sounds like
he saw some flaming meteor splash into the water nearby, which just
didn't happen.
I'd say he saw the meteor disappear below his local horizon, which
would have happened when the meteor was still many miles high, and
therefore very far from him- more than a hundred miles, maybe a lot more.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Bross"
<elemen...@peconic.net>
To: "Chris Peterson" <c...@alumni.caltech.edu>;
<meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Suffolk man says he saw meteor hit
so, Chris, is it "not a chance" or "he saw the fireball drop below
the horizon" ??
Kind of confusing...
Michael B, France
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--
Regards,
Eric Wichman
Meteorites USA
http://www.meteoritesusa.com
904-236-5394
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