Bright Fireball Blazes Across High Desert, Oregon

[Believer]

Bright Fireball Blazes Across High Desert, Oregon

http://www.ktvz.com/news/29268544/detail.html

BEND, Ore. -- A bright fireball streaking across the sky Wednesday night was seen by dozens, likely hundreds or more Oregonians as it blazed an east-to-west trail over the Cascades and apparently well out over the Pacific Ocean. But an expert in such matters said it was not, as many surmised, an early arrival of the large falling satellite expected to plummet to Earth on Friday.

“From everything I’ve heard, it’s not a satellite -- short duration, moving fast, changing color and went out over the Pacific,” said Dick Pugh of Portland State University’s Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory.

Pugh said Thursday he’d heard from several media outlets, but not yet directly from anyone who observed the object. (He can be reached at (503) 287-6733.)

Fireballs are usually an optical illusion, in that they can appear to be falling far closer to the person who sees them than is actually the case.

“I get these reports quite often,” Pugh said, especially on clear summer nights. “Until I hear (someone heard) sound effects, we don’t get that excited,” in terms of the potential of finding meteorites.

Tom Ferrara called NewsChannel 21 around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday to say he, his wife and son had seen “a huge, bright green streak falling over the mountains, past the mountains, North Sister, sloping downward.”

On NewsChannel 21’s Facebook page, several people reported seeing the fireball as well.

Colton Esson, who lives on Bend’s Eastside, said it was a “big ball of white light that fell from the sky.”  “It was really round and really, really bright,” Esson wrote.

Jacob DeHaan said it appeared green from Madras, where he and his fiance saw it.

Tiffany Focht said they saw it fall “toward the Madras Airport.”

David Ewing said they saw it driving west on Reed Market Road in Bend, toward Highway 97, “and it looked light green and acted like a small flare-gun flare.”

In the Willamette Valley, the Register-Guard said sSeveral west Eugene residents reported seeing the large, multi-colored ball of light traveling across the western sky toward the Pacific.

The callers' descriptions of the object's color ranged from yellow-green to blue-green, and one observer said it streaked slowly through the sky with a flame trail producing no noise.

One west Eugene resident described the object as an "orb" burning up in the atmosphere in "every color of the rainbow."

"It was a big piece of metal," he said. "It was definitely a man-made chunk of something."

The caller conjectured that, because of the object's color, it was not likely a meteor and instead may have been a piece of the dead 6-ton NASA satellite expected to hit Earth this week.

However, NASA scientists said they don't expect any satellite chunks to touch down before Friday morning West Coast time.

KGW.com said reports of the sighting ran from Portland to Southern Oregon but seemed to be focused on the central Willamette Valley and central Oregon coast.

PSU’s Pugh said while the satellite had yet to fall, when it does, “there’s going to be pieces that get through the atmosphere.”

“It’s a big as a bus,” he said. “A chunk of 300 pounds is going to make it down -- that would wreck your whole day.”

But with it tumbling and “the orbit changing every minute, NASA can only say it’ll come down somewhere between the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic Ocean.”

With most of the planet covered with water, “odds are it’s going to end up in the drink,” Pugh said, though he noted that when Skylab fell to Earth many years ago, it “busted up over the Outback of Australia” and left pieces behind.

[William]

I just contacted man at the phone number above.

He said they heard no sounds, and that it was moving west over Oregon out into the Pacific ocean, and that they get them quite often. He also said it has nothing to do with Comets, but normally things from the Asteroid belt.

When I told him I was from Missouri, and that I have been seeing a lot of shooting stars come down over my property like every other day, or AT least once a week, or so now. He said its something called meteorite dust possibly, and that every month their is a shower except "September," so its probably random what I'm seeing.

He suggested I get some books on Meteorites, and stuff and if I want to know more information.

He said we get meteor showers when their smaller, and fireballs when their bigger.