large meteor sited near Sitka, AK

Status
Not open for further replies.
N

ncsurv

Guest
Has there been any reports of a large meteor/space debris sited near Sitka, AK on 12/14/2009? I have some photo's taken by a school bus driver of the object.
akwy79.jpg
nfledd.jpg
2z5iwq8.jpg
 
M

MeteorWayne

Guest
There is one report of a large fireball on the meteorobs maillist, but while the flight path (West to east, North of Bonnyville Alberta) The time is fuzzy since it is not expressed in any active standard time zone, so we don't know really when it was.

What time was the fireball you are talking about? It is the most critical piece of information in determining if there are any other reports. WIthout knowing when it was, how can a search through reports even be started????
 
N

ncsurv

Guest
i will try to find out the exact time the event occured when my brother wakes up. Its a little early there. According to the photographer the object was visible for about five minutes. This tells me the object was large and descending at a slow rate. i believe the photograph was taken shorty after sunrise (i.e. 10:00 am) looking over Sugarloaf Mtn. Still need to post the photo's. They are in JPG. format. How do i do that? A bit of a newbie with this.
 
S

Shpaget

Guest
Welcome
Go to http://tinypic.com/
You can upload your pictures there and post the links you get.

BTW, if it took it 5 minutes to descend, I doubt it was a meteor.
 
M

MeteorWayne

Guest
Shpaget is absolutely correct. If it took 5 minutes, it definately was not a meteor. Meteors take fractions of a second, to perhaps 10 or 15 seconds for meteorite dropping fireballs.
I'll check the reenetering man-made debris list for anything around that time.
 
S

Shpaget

Guest
Meta data shows the pictures were taken on the November 14 at 9:03 (the first one) and 9:04 (2nd and 3rd) (or at least the camera date was set like that).

Whatever it is it does look like it was descending slowly (there was enough time to zoom in for the 2nd picture).
 
N

ncsurv

Guest
Shapget,

i would have to say the metadata you have extracted is accurate. Sunrise for that day was @ 8:30am.
 
O

origin

Guest
This may be way off the mark but, if this was seen for almost 5 minutes it could have been nothing more than a jet flying away from the observer with a rather odd condensation trail and so appearing to slowly descend behind the mountain.
 
R

R1

Guest
It also seems to be in one piece, and the trail seems too short for a fast bolide.
 
N

nimbus

Guest
That trail looks like something pouring off a ton of smoke at low speed.
 
W

weeman

Guest
origin":pni3ixi7 said:
This may be way off the mark but, if this was seen for almost 5 minutes it could have been nothing more than a jet flying away from the observer with a rather odd condensation trail and so appearing to slowly descend behind the mountain.

It would definitely be a strange contrail. I live in CO and the contrails from planes can stick around for well over an hour, and I've never seen anything look quite like that.
 
M

MeteorWayne

Guest
It doesn't look like any commercial jet contrail I've ever seen, but perhaps an 8 engine military bomber could make one like that. We still fly B-52's right?
 
B

bushwhacker

Guest
Has anyone found any more info on this thing? I just cant see that as a jet contrail, not even a b52.

Does anyone know if there is a SAC base anywhere in that area?
 
A

Alaskan1

Guest
I sent these photos to my brother who was the original poster asking about this event. The event actually took place this week, the photographer had just changed batteries in his camera and the date stamp was incorrect. Today I got a chance to ask some more questions. The event lasted about four minutes and there were a couple of witnesses here at our bus company. They all said it was moving very slowly and coming straight down. We only get a couple of flights a day in and out of Sitka this time of year and they all said there was no way this was a plane. The area that this came down in is some of the most rugged terrain known to man. Uninhabited and treacherous to try and hike to to investigate.
 
O

origin

Guest
I don't know, are you sure this isn't just a contrail? I mean it was sighted for 4 MINUTES!

This certainly looks pretty close to the 'fireball'.

www-BrianWhittaker-com-A340contrail-800.jpg
 
A

Alaskan1

Guest
A large planes contrail is certainly possible. Those that saw it however, said it was definately not a plane. A couple of guys at the airport I know should have access to flight arrival and departure info. I'll check into it.
 
S

Shpaget

Guest
No one noticed so I'll repeat myself. Pictures are dated November 14, not December 14.
Could be that camera date is wrong, but it could mean something else too.
 
O

origin

Guest
Shpaget":2938dzsu said:
No one noticed so I'll repeat myself. Pictures are dated November 14, not December 14.
Could be that camera date is wrong, but it could mean something else too.

Actually somebody did respond and the date was wrong due to a battery change.
 
O

origin

Guest
OK, I have 2 more observations on this:

1. It was stated that this object was in sight for 4 minutes and it appeared to be going down in a very isolated area, so putting these 2 pieces of data together that means if the object was falling straight down it was travieing at about 150 miles/hour - so why is there a plume? Even if it was an acute angle which resulted in a fall of 20 miles it still would only have a velocity of 300 miles/ hour so again, why the plume?

2. Notice in the first picture that there are clearly 3 plumes and in the second picture, which based on the distance from the trees was taken some time later, there again a 3 plumes actually the plumes are identical. I would assume if somthing was falling into the atmosphere and burning up its plume would change shape as the object burnt up or the object would tumble to some degree and the plume would change shape.

It looks more and more to me that we are seeing sunlight illuminating a short lived contrail.
 
A

Alaskan1

Guest
I just spoke with the guys at Aero Services, the refueling station at the Sitka Airport and nothing was on the books for the 14th that would leave that type of Contrail. In fact they've had nothing other than the typical AK Airline 737's that fly in and out, navajo's, fed-ex (twin-prop) not jet and cubs all week.
 
M

MeteorWayne

Guest
Which still leaves a military aircraft as a possibility (likely IMHO)
 
A

Alaskan1

Guest
just to add, that is not a typicl flight path for this neck of the woods. Planes use Biorka island as a nav point and larger planes usually go out of their way on approach and take off using Biorka as a flight path marker. Sorry I don't know the vocabulary to describe a pilots route in and out of Sitka. I do however know that this would have been an unusual route.
 
A

Alaskan1

Guest
I agree the simplest answer is usually correct. Large military aircraft can be seen at times at higher altitudes heading to or from Anchorage.
 
B

bushwhacker

Guest
Has anyone contacted the military in anchorage? sure couldnt hurt, and with the pics and the time they should be able to ID this thing if its one of theirs
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts