Comments on: Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks August 12th, 2009

By: ReActivate

ReActivate — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:03:24 +0000

hi paul, i’m from malaysia.. interesting story to read here, because i also experienced the same on 3rd october 2009 at 9pm (local time) in johor bahru (JB) capital city of johor (southern state near singapore) saw 5 bright orange objects slowly maneuvering the city’s sky.. i saw it with both my parents that night. at first 3 objects flying straight in line then changed it into a triangle. then there 2 objects came closely far behind. i didn’t bring any equipment to capture the scene because we’re in car going to shopping mall that night. some people say that these ufo sighting happened due to series of earthquake in indonesia (or any other mother’s nature destruction), i’m not sure about that but it may relevant because my friend also saw it on september 2009 before the earthquake and myself saw it after. too bad there are no evidence from me and no other people so far had an experience that night same with me.

as i’ve seen in youtube (type: orange ufo in searchbox) after the sighting, it look the same like i saw in the video and interestingly same all over the whole.

By: Ray Solomon

Ray Solomon — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:59:11 +0000

7:35 pm MST Today.
I just saw a large meteor streak. Brighter than a helicopter. Streaking from West to North East over East Mesa near Phoenix. It broke up in many pieces. It was brighter than the police helicopter lights. It broke up in many pieces like firework it spread out. It lasted about 3 seconds total. It was close.

Ray in Mesa.

By: flo

flo — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:45:29 +0000

this is going to sound stupid but is it true were going to die in 2012 with a comet hitting the earth?

By: Kevin Brown

Kevin Brown — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:18:10 +0000

Wow Monica,

Great description. Think you saw a fireball! (I haven’t yet)

Check the American Meteor Society link just above.

Thanks,
Kevin

PS. Sorry, the AMS link was not “just above” (I’m shocked, but very pleased by the popularity of this blog post!) Here’s the AMS fireball reporting page. Thanks again.

By: Monica

Monica — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:11:29 +0000

On August 14 , I was in Dallas Texas hanging out with my brother and my husband…just talking outside in the balcony, when suddenly…this enormous flare of light almost like fire came out of nowhere in the sky, shaped as a comet…like a bright ball of fire or light or who knows followed by a tail the same color crossing from west to east and becoming smaller as it travelled, finally ending with 2 or 3 burnt ashes left behind and dimming themselves. This lasted for about 8 seconds…my brother was freaked out because of my stare!!! Eyes wide open, mouth half open…I was really amazed…I kicked him so he turned around and see what I was looking at. Size? waaaay bigger than an airplane….had the shape of a comet, and the size…hmmm..can’t really tell….if you hold a quarter with your thumb and index finger lift your arm straight and hold the coin level with your eyes in front of you…that’s about the size of the thing I saw…not that close of course, but that size far away in the sky…hhmmm..I hope I explained that correctly…anyways, it was incredible…never seen omething like that before…only in movies like Deep Impact…that kind of appearance but without stone seen…just light or fire….very bright!!

By: Paul Morris

Paul Morris — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:06:10 +0000

Hi everyone,

Many thanks for your various replies regarding the UFOs. Its interesting to see how many people saw something similar.

I’ve had various suggestions for possible causes. One possibility seems to be Chinese Lanterns, released following a festival. These will float overhead following the wind, giving off an orange light. I have to admit that what I saw didn’t look quite right for this, and my wife has seen Chinese Lanterns before, and remembers them differently.
Neil and Wally in Guelph – could what you describe have been Chinese Lanterns?

Another possible explanation is that they are bits of military kit used to simulate missiles for training excercises.

I don’t think the ones we saw could have been any kind of satellite, due to their high apparent speed. To have crossed the sky that quickly and been high enough to be out of the atmosphere, they would have had to have been travelling well above escape velocity. Also, the East-West path over our latitude would not be the type of Great Circle that any orbiting object would follow.

Flo – your sighting sounds like it was moving much slower than ours, and could have been a satellite. I believe the International Space Station should have been visible, so that might be what you saw.

A colleague at work sent me a couple of links which may be of interest:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1190481/Mysterious-orange-UFOs-swoop-Britains-skies.html

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/Bright-orange-lights-in-sky.4287079.jp

All the best,

Paul.

By: flo

flo — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:22:36 +0000

hi everyone, does anyone know if i will see any perseids tonight? (17th august 2009)

By: flo

flo — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:18:02 +0000

Hi paul, i am flo (aged 10) and I did an astronomy course a few months ago. please dont ignore this just because i am a child. anyway, if it looked like a slightly large star and it took about 2 minutes to cross the sky, and you said it went west to east, that could be the I.S.S. (Internatiol Space Station) but if it did not seem like a large star and went quicker or slower, it could be anything.

thakns
floxxx

By: ‘fe is goo’ « Weighing Matters

‘fe is goo’ « Weighing Matters — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:23:58 +0000

[...] we can sing at the top of our lungs, “Here Comes the Sun,” [by the Beatles.] He sends shooting stars to cross over our camp fire. He sends the most precious little missie moo, an almost two year old [...]

By: wally

wally — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:13:40 +0000

I’m also in Guelph, ON! Neighbours on Alice St. pointed the lights out to me, there were about 15 of us in total that saw it.
We saw up to 7 at one time, all roughly to the north, perhaps 30 degrees above the horizon. All were moving roughly east, quite slowly. There seemed to be some minor movements to and fro. One or two of them just seemed to wink out.
Definitely not meteors, far brighter and larger than any satellite I’ve ever been aware of. None of us had ever seen anything like it.
Sorry that we have all hijacked the Perseid story’s comment section, but this is one of the stranger things that I’ve ever known, and I’m eager to see other folks who witnessed something similar.