The “Big Bang” on Sunday night now appears to have been caused by a meteor, not a leftover bit of Russian rocket.
The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California issued a statement Tuesday morning saying it tracks more than 19,000 manmade objects in space.
“The ‘bright light’ that was reported on the East Coast on Sunday, 29 March at 9:45 p.m. EST was not a result of any trackable manmade object on reentry,” it said.
A spokesman for the center said Tuesday morning: “If it was a meteorite, we don’t track that kind of thing.”
The bright fireball, which was followed one or two minutes later by an enormous booming sound, was seen by many people between Maryland and North Carolina. Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., said on Monday he was nearly positive that it was caused by the booster of a Russian rocket falling back to Earth.
That no longer seems to be the case.
The Baltimore Sun reported that a satellite tracker determined the rocket booster did cross over Hampton Roads, but at too high an altitude to have burned. The Joint Space Operations Center could not immediately confirm reports that the rocket fell into the ocean near Taiwan about two hours after the fireball was seen.
Sky and Telescope magazine’s senior editor Alan MacRobert urged witnesses to record their observations of the fireball at www.amsmeteors.org/fireball/report.html or at www.spaceweather.com.
MacRobert said that the suspected meteor’s path can be reconstructed if enough eyewitness reports give information about the object in relation to the stars or even trees and buildings. Such reports can also help predict where meteorites might have fallen.
Bright meteors are not uncommon, but since most fall over the ocean or unpopulated regions, they are seldom witnessed.
Most astronomy experts say the loud noise heard across Hampton Roads was probably a sonic boom created by the object.
S. Kent Blackwell, an amateur astronomer, was sky-watching in Pungo when the explosion occurred. He said he saw a flash of light "two or three times brighter than the full moon, then it turned orange with a white core and disappeared."
One to two minutes later, a loud noise shook houses in Norfolk and Virginia Beach and was heard as far away as the Eastern Shore.
"It was a very ominous, low-frequency rumble," said Robert Hitt, director of the Chesapeake planetarium, who lives in the Acredale section of Virginia Beach. "The sound was quite different from what you hear from thunder."
No meteor showers are taking place at the moment. The next one is predicted for April 21-22.
Pilot writers Diane Tennant, Patrick Wilson and Carl Fincke contributed to this report.
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hmmmm
I have heard several more booms, so loud the house shook, over the past 2 days. Still no clear explanation, definitly the government.
greenish light and 3 -5 second buzz noise
My husband and I were up and heard an approx 5 sec. buzz noise around 1:30 am Thursday (4/2) early morning. We looked out side and saw a flash of a greenish color light and heard the noise again, then light, and a noise again. Anyone know what this is?
Did anyone else see new
Did anyone else see new flashes of light last night?
Saw 3 flashes of greenlights
Saw 3 flashes of greenlights again tonight at around 1:30 am in Virginia Beach. What is going on?
It's really scary
The way people walk upright, they can fool you sometimes.
ELECTROMAGNETIC (EM PULSES)
Although did not witness this event, after reading some eyewitness commentaries, was intrigued by the fact that pets were obviously physiologically affected a good 15 minutes before being audible to the human ear, and yet another comment re: GPS and PC's going haywire or shutting off completely - THIS IMPLIES ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERFERENCE.
In 1985, read a story in the VA Pilot about the military's "SIMULATION OF A NUCLEAR DETONATION USING ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSES" for one-millionth of a second (yeah, right!) experimentation going on RIGHT HERE IN TIDEWATER (as well as no doubt other geographical regions as well). For weeks before this story broke, though, had been noticing the birds (nobody watches them, anymore) behaving bizarrely. Living within a mile of the naval base, woke up to find my body being affected physiologically by a 7-second cycle of vibration (back when digital watches still had the colon in the middle flashing every second, they don't do that now) so was able to watch/record my body being impacted for a good 15 minutes, with a series of beeps, clicks, tones and vibrations EXACTLY EVERY SEVEN SECONDS. Called a local physics prof, and told him the exact sequence o
cameras
Ok Im wondering why all of these tv camera's they have posted on top of buildings did not pick this up... why have they not rewound the tapes and showed up on live tv... Come on.
Howard the Duck
Everyone, the loud sound and light came from the return of "Howard The Duck". It's ok he is here to save us from our new elected leader.
explosion and lights
what everyone saw the other night was a supernova. An unexpected occurance which is why there is no answer at this time from anyone. Give it sometime and the answers will come to light. There was no meteor nor UFO. A Super-SuperNova
Pilotless Plane
As I keep up with what I see on History, Discovery, etc channels, it has been reported that the Government is developing a new Pilotless Plane that they say will fly higher than any previous aircraft and faster, over 7,000 MPH and the pilot is on the ground with the controls to maintain its flight. This is a larger version of the drones they are using at the present time in Irag and Afghanistan. Remember years ago with the Stealth Fighter operating out of Area 51 that one crashed and
the military showed up to keep the media away from it. The government denied before the crash that they were developing it. Now we are hearing the cause of the large boom was a Meteor???, a rocket booster??? Many it will be a weather balloon like fell in Roswell, NM in 1947 and it blew up when they pressed the self destruct button and that was the large boom and flash.
lucky me!!!
The meteor fell in my backyard......I put it on ebay and it's already fetched $3.50.
I heard it:
I stay near Tidewater drive, and I64 east, in Norfolk. I heard what sounded like a small explosion. It sounded too loud, to be thunder. My first thought, was that something had blown up.
Heard 2 Noises
I heard 2 noises that night. One about 10-15 minutes earlier. The first sound was not as strong as the last one. I thought it was thunder. I looked out and saw no storms.
i live in kempsville just a
i live in kempsville just a few blocks from newtown rd. I was up and did not hear a thing. had there not had been the hub-bub on the news i would have never known anything happened. and personally it's over with. let it go. move on to another crazy news headline. oh, and kudos to kerry dougherty's article this morning about why in the world so many people were out and about late on sunday. it was too funny!
It went down off 31st in the Ocean
Emergency services got called to 31st and the ocean for a boat in distress at about 10pm. Witnesses saw a white flare of the coast. Search found nothing.
Heard it in Maryland
I'm from Hampton Roads, but was vacationing in Maryland and heard the 5 second roar! I thought it was thunder, but when I looked outside it was clear. Of course my first instinct was it's jets since I'm from here, but when I realized where I was and that it wasn't jets I was a little confused. After calling home and finding out what happened and then researching news sites, I realized it happened about 9:45. I actually heard the roaring sound two times, the first time being about 8-10 seconds and the second being about 3-5. WEIRD!!!
This freaked me out!
I was driving in Windsor on Five Forks Road where there are no street lights, just the light of my already dim headlights. So i'm driving with my girlfriend, and i see the famous flash in the sky, and it looked like a ball of bright fireworks falling down. I thought some kids were playing with fireworks. It landed right near where I was driving, but it made no kind of sound at all. Hopefully they will have something on the news at 6.
What you saw was the planet Venus refracted through swamp gas
The sound you heard was made by one of your Navy jets breaking the sound barrier.
It was NOT the massive release of photons generated by an intense energy vortex created by an alien vessel transitioning from hyperspace to normal space within your planet's atmosphere. That sound was NOT the air that was displaced (by the alien spacecraft that didn't arrive) contracting back filling the vaccum.
There is no cause for alarm.
klaatu barrada nikto
Wish I had my camera handy...
I was traveling on Oceana Blvd at 9:45 heading back home from a trip to South Carolina...I first saw a flash of very bright greenish blue light then heard this obnoxiously loud boom that did make me jump a bit, a few seconds later, another flash of greenish blue light that lite up the entire night sky and roadway...as I slowed down and looked left out of the window, I saw what looked like the after-effects of fireworks but much brighter and traveling very fast.
I believed then and still believe that it was parts of a meteor and not rocket junk.
Too bad I didn't have my camera at the ready, it was an amazing site.
National News
I wonder why this incident was not reported on the national News or did I miss it. Seems to me this is a real mystery since no one is aware of what this thing was for sure.