Mysterious fireball lights up night sky
Updated: Thu Nov. 20 2008 21:24:22
Amanda Ferguson, ctvedmonton.ca
A mysterious fireball lit up the sky across Edmonton and a large part of the prairies Thursday evening. Many witnesses reported that they saw "bright orange flames" with a large tail that shot horizontally across the sky and then disappeared.
Others said it looked like horizontal lightning, where all the clouds in one huge swath were lit up.
Richard Bellington said he was driving north of Highway 2 on his way to Edmonton when he saw the sky light up.
The flames were so bright and appeared to travel so close to the ground that he called 911.
South Edmonton resident Peter Koroluk said it was hard to tell where it landed.
"It came down with a huge tail following and it had lit up past way behind it attached to the ball," he said. "This ball was about the size of a football."
Dan Charrois, who lives about 50 kilometres north of Edmonton, said security cameras set up at his home managed to capture some grainy footage showing a big flare in the night sky.
"It happened so fast I don't think anyone would have had the reaction time to get it," he told CTV.ca, adding that his computer software business has written programs which track meteors.
Though Charrois didn't see the fireball himself, he decided to check the security tapes after his friends and neighbours called him to find out where the light may have came from.
"I only had to rewind a couple of minutes and it was there," he said, noting the security time stamped the flash at 5:26 p.m. local time.
"You kind of see a flash, which lasts about two seconds or so," he said.
Seen far and wide
Callers as far as Onoway, Beaumont and Cold Lake also report seeing the ball of flames. Stations as far north as Fort McMurray are also passing along sightings.
Other witnesses in Lloydminster, said the light was so strong that it appeared to be daylight when it passed over the area.
Residents from northern Saskatchewan to southern Alberta have reported seeing it, the RCMP said.
Some experts say the fireball could be part of the Leonids meteor showers, where activity has been predicted to begin on Nov. 17.
Officals with NORAD, or the North American Aerospace Defence Command, confirm it was not a man-made object and it poses no threat to North American security.
It not been confirmed as a meteor by official sources, but Alan Dyer,a Calgary-based astronomer from the Telus World of Science, has said that it's too soon to speculate on what caused the light, but that it is likely a meteorite.
Chris Herd, a meteorite scientist at the University of Alberta, said people shouldn't panic after seeing such a sight.
"The sky's a big place," he said. "It can play tricks, these fireballs can play tricks with you and it can look like they fell over there, when it actually can be tens of thousands of kilometres away. The fact that we've got reports as far away as Cold Lake, Saskatoon and Airdrie tells you can see it from a long ways away."
There is no word whether the meteorite actually hit land.
