Comments on: September 3, 2012 Fireball over South-Central USA

By: Jones

Jones — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:47:06 +0000

I live in east Texas. I saw this meteoroid, or Earth grazing fireball on Sept. 3rd, 2012. I just happened to be outside facing south when I heard a loud boom. We live close to a railroad. The boom was so loud, I thought it might be a railroad accident. Cars accidents don’t sound like this did. The fire ball appeared low in the sky and moved seemingly slow. To put it on a scale, from my perspective it was about the size of a cantaloupe. Not sure what the actual scale would be. It looked like something straight out of a movie. Black with a white arc around the front, red, orange, and yellow flames, with a tail of gray smoke trailing to white. I’ve seen meteorites fall before and that’s quite a show, but I’d never seen anything like this! What’s up with the increase in frequency of these? Thanks for your response.

By: Christina Luera

Christina Luera — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 04:40:19 +0000

I appreciate yout reply to my eyewitness account. It was a super amazing event, that left me unable to sleep a few nights after, simply in awe of what I saw and wondering ‘what the heck’ was that?!!!

By: amsadmin

amsadmin — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:13:39 +0000

Christina,

Meteors and fireballs seen during the morning hours tend to be much faster than those seen during the evening hours, which are a majority of those reported to the AMS. Being unprepared for such a occurrence, I can understand your reaction to such an event. I’m certain you witnessed a fireball, which are produced by objects larger than the normal pebble-size stones we see as meteors at night.

I hope this helps!

Robert Lunsford
American Meteor Society

By: Christina Luera

Christina Luera — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 06:52:05 +0000

I’ve been searching the internet to see if anyone reported anything close to what I saw in San Diego, California at 5:40am on September 3, 2012. I read the fireball sightings reported, but none matched my description, in that it was a fast vertically moving spherical white light.
I reported it as a fireball, but after reading other people’s sightings of fireballs, my sighting didn’t exactly match their sightings. It moved as fast as a falling star, which is what I initially thought it was. The falling stars I’ve seen have never scared me; I gasped for a breath in that split second when it appeared and disappeared. Â I’m a science person, and it really bothers me not knowing what it was.

By: amsadmin

amsadmin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:53:53 +0000

Alejandra, I don’t believe these were meteors or fireballs. Perhaps the red balls were actually Chinese lanterns or other man-made items?

Robert Lunsford
American Meteor Society

By: Alejandra

Alejandra — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 13:15:07 +0000

I believe I saw some yesterday, September 8,2012 from 8:00 p.m. to maybe 10:00 p.m in Puerto Rico. We saw around seven and we were actually scared because they looked so strange and close. They were bright red balls and often came in groups of three, some even came in triangles and they seemed like they were moving slowly. Never seen anything like that before, it was exciting and scary!

By: Jennifer Austin

Jennifer Austin — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:38:38 +0000

Last night was the first time I had seen a meteorite. I live in a remote mountainous area 20 miles east of San Diego, Ca. and because we have no street lights here I was able to view the object light up the sky when it went flying by. I had a wonderful unobstructed view. What a sight! I will be keeping my camera with me from now on.