Fireball across the prairies

[ditar]

Unfortunately I was not in the air tonight, but I'm sure there must be some of us who were. Does anybody have any first-hand accounts of this? The flashes looked like they lit up the entire sky, based on the footage they showed on Global Edmonton.

A possible meteor lit up the sky around 5:30 Thursday evening in Western Canada, with people reporting sightings in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

People telephoned the CBC newsrooms in Edmonton and Calgary to talk about what they saw.

"It was a really big flash, lit up the sky, and there was this huge, flaming fireball falling from the sky," said Rowyn Windsor, who lives on the base in Cold Lake, Alta., about 350 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

"This huge light in our kitchen window lit up our whole kitchen. It kinda flashed a couple of times. It was really bright, it was a different light than lightning," said Sabrina Schneider who lives just outside Lloydminster on the Saskatchewan-Alberta border.

"We weren't really sure what happened ... got up to look out the window and all of a sudden we heard this rumbling."

Schneider said her sister saw the meteor while she was driving past North Battleford, Sask.

People from Medicine Hat, Alta., Unity, Sask. and Manitoba also reported seeing the light.

[TAXIservice]

I saw it! I was flying at FL250 about 100 south east of grande prairie on my way to Calgary. We saw a huge ball of fire (probably 3 football fields big) shoot straight down from the sky with about a 4000 foot long trail of fire! Scared the crap out of us!

[freakonature]

You just described the Canadian economy! Weird.

[TAXIservice]

I heard it hit just outside a small town near Edmonton. Aircraft reported fires on the ground where it hit. Edmonton ATC said it was the craziest thing they have seen in their whole career!

[moe]

coming back from palm springs tonight at 410 just crossing the alta border. was doing (finishing) the crossword and saw this bright light i thought was another a/c approaching from the right with landing lights on. i let go of my balls long enough to see the descending white orb with a fiery tail. it lasted a few seconds then seemed to dissipate at about fl200. scared me a bit, rambled like a preschooler for a spell then i was fine. i could have died though.

[TAXIservice]

I saw that it was still pretty huge descending through FL230. I thought about Amageddon the movie and about what Ben Affleck would have done.......

[Big Pratt]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/ ... TE=DEFAULT

A $100,000 tool bag was lost during the first spacewalk of the mission two days ago.

It looks like you boys found it.

BP

[TAXIservice]

This was A LOT bigger than a tool box

[Big Pratt]

I know, hence the wink...

Must have been quite a sight.

BP

[TAXIservice]

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CT ... b=CP24Home

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/ ... eteor.html

Check out the news reports

[oldtimer]

I was about 50 miles west of the Lumsden VOR @ 12k on V304 when the whole friggen cockpit lit up. My first thought was that an airliner bust an altitude and suddenly turned on the landing lights. My right seater called out that it was a flare but what I saw was no bloody flare, it was the brightest thing I have ever seen at night. I saw it to the north west of our position and a military Harvard 2 on approach to Swift Current reported he saw it to the north east. I thought it landed somewhere near Lloydminister or Outlook. I couldn't see it but Dallen said he saw the smoke trail. I believe that because a high flying jet ahead of us was leaving a vapor trail which was still lit up by the setting sun and I could see that very well. The sun had set, it was dark but we still had a glow on the western horizon. Quite a sight.

[BibleMonkey]

Power is going out Everywhere!..... I am posting this from the Public Library in Vegreville-they have smashed our enormous Ukrainian Easter egg, cut the phone lines and are rampaging through the streets....save yourselves!....stay back!-it is too late for us,...........................

[RFN]

Must've looked like airline stock.

[privateer]

I saw it flying near Slave Lake AB, I thought my eyes were lying to me it was so unbelievable. It was like night went to day and a Nuc went off or something. Unreal is all have to say.

[BibleMonkey]

A brilliant green fireball startled onlookers across western Canada on Nov. 20th (5:30 pm MST) when it split the evening sky and fragmented during a series of thunderous explosions. "The sky was lit up almost like daytime for 3 or 4 seconds," reports Gordon Blomgren of Alberta. Murray McDonnell of northwestern Saskatchewan says "my wife and I saw a brilliant flash of blue white light, like lightning. About one minute later a long rumbling sound shook the house."

Andy Bartlett video-recorded the event from a 10th-floor apartment in Edmonton, Alberta:



"The brilliant fireball appeared to be closer than the airplane in the upper right corner of this video," says Bartlett. "I made the movie using a Canon A510."

The nature of the object is uncertain. The slow pace of the fireball favors decaying space junk and, indeed, it may have been a Soyuz rocket body reentering Earth's atmosphere a day earlier than expected. The Soyuz rocket launched a Russian Defense Ministry reconnaissance satellite codenamed Kosmos-2445 on Nov. 14th. We still cannot rule out the possibility that this was a small asteroid disintegrating in Earth's atmosphere; in the statistics of fireballs, asteroids outnumber space junk by a wide margin. Stay tuned for updates.

Click link to play video
http://www.spaceweather.com/

of what is obviously the first glimpse of our new alien-Masters recon ship.

[wxguy]

ATC audio clip from YYC
http://www.liveatc.net/forums/atcaviati ... r-calgary/

[BibleMonkey]

I , for one , welcome our new Tomato-looking Alien Masters.

As the sole remaining survivor of the impact/ rampage zone , they have appointed me to present their demands for our surrrender:

Turn in all our firearms to their Queen, give our governing masters half of all our earnings , to request any privileges or services fill out forms in their confusing alien gibberish, while pledging allegiance to their red and white banner.................. whoa-wait a minute....

They said they're just going to run in the next Federal election instead....

[...]

Must've looked like airline stock.

[winds270]

I am surprised this has garnished so much attention compared to a similar occurrence recently. A year or two ago I witnessed one even better than this flying from Edmonton to Grande Prairie. It was at an odd hour of the night, but other pilots reported seeing it immediately after I reported it to ATC. I was PNF and noticed a flash of light that I thought was coming from a distant cloud, like lightning, but it was soon clear that not only the clouds hundreds of miles away were being lit up like day, but everywhere in sight. The whole cockpit and cabin illuminated brightly. Thoughts flash through the brain: 747 with landing lights about to smash through cockpit; Aliens are abducting us, but then I notice it in my peripheral vision. It passed overhead with brilliant white and green light, shimmering. As it streaked towards Earth over us heading North as it descended, it changed colour in a similar way to the recent one caught on tape. The light was sustained for quite a while and as it fizzled out, became a deep orange/red before disappearing on the horizon. Probably the coolest thing I have seen flying. I made a CIRVIS report for the hell of it and that's when other pilots piped-up about it on the radio. A/C and Westjet reported seeing it as well. The controller came on with a reluctant voice asking, "did you see it impact?" i.e. are we fucked? hahahaha he sounded a bit concerned. Anyone on here flying that night?

[ClevelandSteamer]

My friend was flying when the fire ball came down, he posted the video on facebook. I cant for the life of me post it, but Ill ask him to. It looked pretty wild.

[redline7921]

Saw it heading southbound when we were just Northwest of red deer at 9000. Was a bearing of 060 from out position. Reported it to centre a few seconds later.

[Sheila]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/sp ... nada_N.htm

[Captain Crunch]

Hmmmmmmmm,

It could have just as easily been a shooting star from our location, but it was in that direction (SW). We were enroute from Rankin Inlet to Churchill and remarked a a quick flash of a shooting star, i wonder if it was the same thing, but not as spectacular as we were so far away.

CC

[Flybabe]

January of 2000, another meteorite lit up the sky in SW Yukon. I remember it perfectly, I was outside and it gave off an incredible amount of light, similar to a welding flash. Heard it impact not too long afterwards, the pieces were found by Teslin (I think).

The funny thing is, I was just in a bar in MT this weekend with a coworker and his friend, both of whom were working in Juneau at the time. The friend mentioned the recent meteorite (?) and it was at that point I mentioned the 2000 one. They both looked at me with funny looks and said "we saw that one too!". Apparently they were trying to get some night currency that morning.

Small world - smaller yet when flaming bits of cosmic debris plummet to earth.

[Riverman]

Not sure if this is the exact meteor sighting you guys are talking about but I found this video from a police dash cam in Edmonton. There is no mention of when the video was filmed but it was posted shortly after Thursday's strike.
http://www.break.com/index/police-dash- ... anada.html