Fireball Update

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I guess not everyone's first thought last night was "OMG HOLY SHIT METEOR." A lot of people, like Mom'n'Dad, saw the flash without seeing the thing itself and had no idea what it was. I got to feel all smart and note that it was probably an ambitious chunk of the Leonid dust cloud.

Anyway, here's the best report I could find on it, and here's a sillier one (that does dickheaded autoplay on its videos, so you might want to turn your sound down) with some stuff from Clark Planetarium and a lot of "I SEEN IT WITH MAH OWN TWO EYES" type reporting,* not to mention quite a lot of article comments of either the "THE END IS NIGH" or "THE GOVERNMENT IS KEEPING THE TRUTH FROM US" variety. (KSL is one of those sites for comments.)

Check out the videos, especially the ones from the first link--they're really something.


*My favorite part of that video report is right at the end when the correspondent follows up her interview with NASA guy Patrick Wiggins with this gem: "... He says it's possible meteorites fell elsewhere ... he says It can't hurt to look ... if you do happen to find a piece that looks just like a rock, he says it's worth THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. Back to you." It's also in the text of the article, but with less force.

Really, I can only see people hearing the news that ORDINARY ROCKS IN YOUR BACKYARD ARE WORTH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ending well, can't you?

Comments

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

HOLY SHIT.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I KNOW RIGHT.

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

THAT'S REALLY AWESOME.

[beccastareyes]

Really, I can only see people hearing the news that ORDINARY ROCKS IN YOUR BACKYARD ARE WORTH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ending well, can't you?

We're going to get a 'how to tell someone their rock is not a meteorite' as one of our lunch talks next semester -- half 'this is a meteorite, this is not', and half 'no, really, ma'am, it's a rock'.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I take it "This is clearly from your fish tank" is probably not diplomatic?

[beccastareyes]

Probably. Though most of ours are things like slag iron -- at least, that was the one rock I had to look at, provided by a student who found it while camping and promised her brother she'd get someone to look at it.

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

So, if ordinary rocks are worth thousands of dollars, how much are unusual rocks going to be worth? I got a piece of quartz out there I ought to be able to retire off of. ;)

No, no. It fell outta the damn sky. I swears ta gawd.

[mfb.livejournal.com]

You fool! That's no meteorite.

It's a powerful karma channel deposited here by the orbiting angels. You should be able to pawn it off to the new age deacons for a competitive price.

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

You would think, but they all claim I give off bad vibes and won't talk to me. Whats that all about?

[zimwifepgk.livejournal.com]

When I read the part about how a 'piece that looks just like a rock' is worth thousands of dollars, my immediate thought was, 'This is going to end up like the search for Vetinari's dog in "The Truth," isn't it.'

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

http://spaceweather.com/ has a short little article on it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Nifty--I thought it was a Leonid, but it was just coinciding with them, huh?

[narnian-dreamer.livejournal.com]

Some tour guide in NYC once told me that people who have roof access to sky scrapers find meteorites all the time, and they know they're meteorites, because how else did they get on top of the sky scraper?