tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post8533348470980439304..comments2024-03-18T16:51:50.688-07:00Comments on A Different Perspective: The Nevada Fireball - April 18, 1962KRandlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06333125414889883920noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-46217574694935904372023-12-07T17:10:51.791-08:002023-12-07T17:10:51.791-08:00I was living in eastern Provo, Utah, and was outsi...I was living in eastern Provo, Utah, and was outside the house changing the water sprinkler. I was facing north bending over the sprinkler when the sky lit up behind me. I turned around to see a streak of light coming from the northeast followed immediately by an explosion that lit up the sky. The streak of light then continued in an westerly direction until it disappeared at the horizon.<br /><br />Next day the newspaper reported a meteor, and it was decades later that I read it was possibly a UFO.<br /><br />Interesting<br />Shirlet Fieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07468013948782112059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-11345963597574433752021-08-24T00:28:16.131-07:002021-08-24T00:28:16.131-07:00This is interesting my father told me about this i...This is interesting my father told me about this incident and I asked him for a year and found this article. He said he and his siblings saw a what appeared to be an aluminum craft sparking out and what looked to be electrical issues. The electrical smell story definitely catches my attention with similarity. My dad will be interesting to hear this as well!Searchinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00716112427130107875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-12758869120964682172021-02-17T19:55:00.328-08:002021-02-17T19:55:00.328-08:00I saw this fireball while sitting in my dad's ...I saw this fireball while sitting in my dad's car outside my grandparents house in Henderson,NV, I was seven yrs old. It looked like it hit out at Lake Mead, which is about 9 miles from where I was sitting.My mom showed me an article in the RJ that said it hit outside Salt Lake City, knocking out power to large part of the city. If anyone knows anything else, please write me at pfw525@gmail.com.......Frank ThompsonAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05404553197182463828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-54076852727429278132016-03-14T20:17:57.214-07:002016-03-14T20:17:57.214-07:00I am a meteorite hunter in Las Vegas, NV. If you h...I am a meteorite hunter in Las Vegas, NV. If you have more information on this, let me know. I know of several meteorites being found in the Gold Butte area, and Moapa area, which is near Mesquite, NV. Meteorites can be picked up by radar, and even tracked, just google search meteorites and radar. My email is davidlibuszowski@yahoo.comMThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10212373456337647044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-74019698776013005872013-03-21T02:01:49.995-07:002013-03-21T02:01:49.995-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06873806079474803280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-90917963781339939842013-02-15T16:23:07.438-08:002013-02-15T16:23:07.438-08:00Here are some interesting videos of the Russian fi...Here are some interesting videos of the Russian fireball, including the explosion:<br /><br />HuffingtonPost<br />http://tinyurl.com/cedzv3w<br /><br />Space.com (start of video has sound of shockwave hitting):<br /><br />http://www.space.com/19805-meteorite-crash-russia-injuries.html<br /><br />I found it particularly interesting how the first set of videos show the main explosion but the fireball and trail do not end there, a smaller fireball seeming to continue on the original trajectory for at least half a dozen to a dozen miles before flaming out.<br /><br />There are indeed a number of similarities to the 1962 fireball, including relatively flat, horizontal trajectory, estimated size of the explosion (A-bomb size), ground illumination, and estimated speed and size of the object. Most damage seems to have been not from meteor fragments but the shock wave of the explosion shattering windows. <br /><br />This fireball seems to have detonated at a lower altitude and therefore caused widespread ground damage, unlike 1962, or it was a larger explosion. I seriously doubt it detonated at 10,000 meters in one of the news reports, or damage would have been much more massive. One witness said the shock wave took about 3 minutes to arrive, so she would have been about 36 miles from the explosion. No doubt the trajectory experts will soon pour over all the videos and calculate a more precise trajectory, speed, energy, and size.<br /><br />Well, almost certainly a meteor, even though you can't really tell the difference between a natural object and an artificial one burning up in the atmosphere from simple videos.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-76870617505335396422013-02-15T04:16:37.273-08:002013-02-15T04:16:37.273-08:00Hi
David...all good questions. I don't ball li...Hi<br />David...all good questions. I don't ball lightning is a likely explanation but there are some indications of larger and longer lived plasmas being occasionally generated by various poorly understood mechanisms (e.g Hessdalen). I'm not saying this is the explanation, but worth considering given the coincidence of timing. Events today in Russia (15/2/2013) seem similar to the high altitude fireball alsoAnthony Muganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09500170864254300321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-88796461277864352992013-02-12T12:14:09.746-08:002013-02-12T12:14:09.746-08:00Anthony,
Thanks for the reference. Two big probl...Anthony,<br /><br />Thanks for the reference. Two big problems I have with this as an explanation for happened in 1962 are duration and distance. The "object" near Las Vegas was tracked on radar for 32 minutes. Reports of ball lightning have durations typically measured in seconds, rarely a minute or more. I don't think there are any historical accounts of half an hour.<br /><br />Also there is a separation of three hundred miles between Mesquite, Utah and Las Vegas. Meteors certainly do ionize the atmosphere as they pass through it, but the ionization is along their trajectory, not hundreds of miles ahead of it and tens of miles below. I do not see how a meteor could trigger ball lightning formation hundreds of miles away.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-73749847413866225862013-02-11T01:34:14.630-08:002013-02-11T01:34:14.630-08:00Hi
Reference and abstract as promised (he is actua...Hi<br />Reference and abstract as promised (he is actually Australian, not from new Zeealand). Do treat with some caution as I don't think the causal mechanism is fully understood, but possibly of relevance.<br /><br />Stephen Hughes, 2011, ‘Green fireballs and ball lightning’, Proc R Soc A 2011 467:1427-1448; doi:10.1098/rspa.2010.0409<br /><br />Abstract given below:<br /><br />Green fireballs and ball lightning<br /><br />1. Stephen Hughes*<br /><br />+ Author Affiliations<br /><br />1. Department of Physics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia<br /><br />1. *↵sw.hughes@qut.edu.au<br /><br />Abstract<br />This paper presents evidence of an apparent connection between ball lightning and a green fireball. On the evening of the 16 May 2006 at least three fireballs were seen by many people in the skies of Queensland, Australia. One of the fireballs was seen passing over the Great Divide about 120 km west of Brisbane, and soon after, a luminous green ball about 30 cm in diameter was seen rolling down the slope of the Great Divide. A detailed description given by a witness indicates that the phenomenon was probably a highly luminous form of ball lightning. A hypothesis presented in this paper is that the passage of the Queensland fireball meteor created an electrically conductive path between the ionosphere and ground, providing energy for the ball lightning phenomenon. A strong similarity is noted between the Queensland fireball and the Pasamonte fireball seen in New Mexico in 1933. Both meteors exhibit a twist in the tail that could be explained by hydrodynamic forces. The possibility that multiple sightings of fireballs across southeast Queensland were produced owing to fragments from comet 73P Schwassmann–Wachmann 3 is discussed<br />Anthony Muganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09500170864254300321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-52152576683169482202013-02-10T12:20:44.299-08:002013-02-10T12:20:44.299-08:00I previously wrote:
If the streetlights in Eureka ...I previously wrote:<br /><i>If the streetlights in Eureka went out temporarily because photocells designed to turn them off in the early morning were triggered by the light of the explosion, that could put a more quantitative lower limit on the radiative energy of the light than descriptions like "as bright as the light of day."</i><br /><br />Let's flesh the idea out a little bit. Streetlights usually use cadmium sulfide photoresistors, which have been around for a long time, to trigger turning street lights on or off. These have high resistance when it is dark and very low resistance when it is light. How the resistance drops off is measured in lux, illumination energy per square area adjusted for how humans perceive light brightness with wavelength. It so happens Cd-S photocells have sensitivities to wavelength similar to that of the human eye, so they are very good at turning the streetlights on and off at the appropriate moment, and are also used in camera light meters for the same reason.<br /><br />To get a feeling for what lux means, good interior lighting might be around 50-100 lux, a very dark, cloudy, stormy day might be around 100 lux, brightness at dusk or dawn on a clear day is around 400 lux, an overcast day around 1000 lux, full daylight but not direct sunlight around 10,000-25,000 lux, and direct sunlight around 30,000 to 120,000 lux.<br /><br />Obviously you want the streetlights to trigger at about dusk or dawn lightness, or about 400 lux, but not on an overcast day at 1000 lux, when there is plenty of light to see by. This is less than 1% of the illumination in direct sunlight on a clear day (where the power levels can be 1 Kilowatt/m^2)<br /><br />However, this is in continuous light. With the 1962 explosion, the light flash was only a few seconds. I would guess you would therefore need a much more intense light to quickly trigger the light switch.<br /><br />A "typical" trigger might consist of the Cd-S photocell attached to a heating element around a bimetal, like in a thermostat. When the light goes up, the resistance in the circuit goes down, the bimetal is heated, causing it to bend. If it bends far enough, it opens the main lighting circuit and turns the lights off. When it's dark, the resistance is high and very little current heats the bimetal. It returns to its dark/cold lights-on position. How long it takes to turn the lights on or off depends on the particulars of the photosensitive switch, for which I have no data. <br /><br />But I would guess for the streetlights in Eureka to turn off to such a short flash, the light intensity would have to be much higher than the prolonged dim light intensity that would normally turn off the lights at dawn.<br /><br />In my calculation of explosion energy, I used a distance of 40 miles from the explosion for Eureka (based on how long it took them to hear it) and full direct sunlight intensity of about 1000 joules/m^2. This works out to a total energy of about 5*10^13 joules, which just so happens to be what a "typical" 15 kiloton A-bomb releases. This would make the flash as bright as daylight, as witnesses reported and would represent close to he upper end of what the energy release of the explosion was.<br /><br />If the photocells could rapidly turn off the street lights with only a few seconds of bright light at maybe 10% of full sunlight, then this would be the lower end of energy--a small A-bomb.<br /><br />We could then get into the source of this energy, whether kinetic energy of reentry would be enough, but you need a very massive object to do it, probably something like a "mothership" in size of several thousand tons rather than a small UFO. (By comparison, a fully loaded 747 would weigh around 300 tons.)David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-56146016918532178032013-02-09T17:48:03.284-08:002013-02-09T17:48:03.284-08:00MH (Scott Holloway) wrote:
I spoke to the wife of...MH (Scott Holloway) wrote:<br /><br /><i>I spoke to the wife of the Deputy Sheriff in 1962, Walter Butt, who was in poor health and unable to speak with me. She told me that he led a search team to the perimeter of the Nevada Test Site, which is far from the area where I believe the object crashed, and far from where Las Vegas witnesses reported the explosion, near Mesquite. The SUN article mentioned a search of the Spring Mountain area, again nowhere near Bunkerville or mesquite.</i><br /><br />Quite. The Spring Mountains are about 15 miles west of town, so a search there makes no sense for an object reported headed towards Bunkerville/Mesquite, which are about 70 miles NE of town.<br /><br />The Test Site begins about 45 miles NW of town (at Indian Springs AFB) though portions are to the NNW. The Sheep Range is north of town on the SW side of the Test Site. East of town a few miles is Sunrise Mountain with Lake Mead (behind Hoover Dam) on the other side.<br /><br />If any searches were being done, I would think they either have been the NE sector around the Sheep Range or beyond Sunrise Mt., not the Spring Mts., which are in completely the wrong direction.<br /><br /><i>The area south of there is not easily accessible, and I believe that if the crash occurred there, the only plausible witnesses to the crash site would have been miners working in the area, or a military retrieval team. It is not a site that one would just stumble across. However, I have located the mine mentioned by the witnesses as the nearest landmark.</i><br /><br />If by south you mean south of Bunkerville, then this would be the region around Lake Mead and south of the dam which are indeed extremely rough canyonlands cut out by the Colorado River. It would definitely be very hard to find something that landed or crashed there unless it was seen coming down or tracked by radar. Same thing if it landed/crashed into Lake Mead.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-32636387818422719472013-02-09T02:54:21.908-08:002013-02-09T02:54:21.908-08:00Just to add, as the previous comment seemed to sei...Just to add, as the previous comment seemed to seize up part way through...<br /><br />It may be worth considering and testing a couple of alternative possibilities for the low level track. There are rare types of plasma that can occurr in the atmosphere that can reflect radar and have an appearance consistent with the report from the aircraft. It is known that these can be generated in times of high seismic strain, so an examination of relevant seismic data could be suggestive if there was an increase in seismic activity in the area (radius of around 150 miles would be enough) within a month or six weeks of the event. If not then unlikely to be a tectonic strain light. There was also a recent paper by a New Zealand researcher suggesting that plasma could be generated by the passage of meteorites. I'm typing this away from the desk but will try to dig out the reference later. I don't know how that idea has stood up to scrutiny but it seems possibly of relevance. Not sure how to test it, but there may be something in the original paper that could help (the time gap and distances involved may be a factor, but in needs a specialist).<br /><br />Sorry, whilst I am overall supportive of the ETH, the number of cases that survive serious scrutiny (I don't mean the absurd pseudo-sceptical rubbish put out by some) seems quite small to me. That may include not accepting some genuine events just because it's not possible to eliminate all alternatives and show some positive evidence in favour of a controlled technology. All the best with the continued research on this one. There are certainly some interesting aspects to it, but I can't accept it shows evidence for an actual UFO crash just yet. I confess I am also sceptical over Kecksburg, but with an element of doubt. Roswell is in a league of it's own in terms of UFO alleged crash cases, as far as I can see.<br /><br />Anyway, I'll sign off now, sorry for being annoying!Anthony Muganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09500170864254300321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-45694694079696471782013-02-09T02:35:34.875-08:002013-02-09T02:35:34.875-08:00Hello
I am again impressed by the additional depth...Hello<br />I am again impressed by the additional depth of information being provided. Please accept any further thoughts in the spirit intended, which is to be constructively challenging.<br />The data presented does support two events at least, the high level trajectory at 8:17-8:19 and unbidden tidied radar track at 10,000 feet 16 mins later. I agree that the timings of the high level trajectory are consistent with something coming in from space, allowing for slight elements of rounding of differences in time pieces involved. An east to west trajectory would be from a retrograde orbit, so unlikely to be a man made satellite but is consistent with either a meteor or a more advanced technology. I especially like the point about the photocells being triggered a this could help put a lower lit on the radiant power. We are clearly not talking about an actual atomic explosion and the lack of blast damage is also a factor. This in all honesty does sound like a large bolide exploding in the upper atmosphere but I remain very open to any data from any specialists in such matters as to why that couldn't be so.<br />The escape pod idea is ingenious, and you can get some interesting correlations in UFO patterns. For example a paper of mine in 2011 in the Journal of Frontier Science suggested that UFO sightings were statistically significantly more common near CE4 events, but as a single event coincidence of timing is possible and we don't have a clear chain of evidence linking the high and low events.<br /><br />If the aircraft sighting could be tied in with the radar track that would rule out weather anomalies. It doesn't sound like a weather related radar anomaly, but someone would no doubt try and suggest. If the radar track was contnous for a reasonable length of flight that would also more or less rule out the weather type effect and meterological records could also help here to.Anthony Muganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09500170864254300321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-50554859670306020942013-02-08T21:52:09.803-08:002013-02-08T21:52:09.803-08:00Scott Holloway.Scott Holloway.MHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01568176387299985125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-26625015045271141552013-02-08T21:50:08.503-08:002013-02-08T21:50:08.503-08:00Let me add that I am open to various interpretatio...Let me add that I am open to various interpretations of the nature of the object. The object reported across the country on 4/18/62 may not have been a single event. Suggestive, yes, but, I concede, impossible to prove empirically. Whatever was seen in Utah and Nevada, if reported somewhat accurately, defies the meteor explanation, especially the Bob Robinson and Pebble Cox accounts.<br />It's a process. I can accept the truth whatever it may be. My research is far from complete, always evolving. There is more to this than I ever would have guessed, but the journey is fascinating.<br /><br />Mr. Rudiak, please feel free to contact me with any information, even just recollections of 1962 Las Vegas. Be glad to hear from you, here or through email. MHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01568176387299985125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-27503986706520944312013-02-08T21:30:43.895-08:002013-02-08T21:30:43.895-08:00I spoke to the wife of the Deputy Sheriff in 1962,...I spoke to the wife of the Deputy Sheriff in 1962, Walter Butt, who was in poor health and unable to speak with me. She told me that he led a search team to the perimeter of the Nevada Test Site, which is far from the area where I believe the object crashed, and far from where Las Vegas witnesses reported the explosion, near Mesquite. The SUN article mentioned a search of the Spring Mountain area, again nowhere near Bunkerville or mesquite. The area south of there is not easily accessible, and I believe that if the crash occurred there, the only plausible witnesses to the crash site would have been miners working in the area, or a military retrieval team. It is not a site that one would just stumble across. However, I have located the mine mentioned by the witnesses as the nearest landmark. The question of witnesses from that mine is much more difficult, as records from that era, especially of unincorporated mines, are almost nonexistent. <br />If the site does exist, I believe there must be some indication of it, given the apparent force of the explosion, if that is what it was. There have been UFO reports of extremely bright flashes, noiseless, which preceded landings, but did not damage the UFO. I also consider the account of the Berthold Schwarz military witness, who claimed to have been shown a recovered craft from Nevada at a base in Arizona. Schwarz was highly impressed with the man's credentials, and I find his account suggestive of a mention by Donald Kehoe to Wilbert Smith of a secret base in Arizona for the purpose of studying UFO propulsion, a base first mentioned in fact by Smith, far predating the Schwarz witness. Whatever this man witnessed, he was still quite adamant about not discussing the incident with me or Schwarz further, although noting that there was something to it. <br />Not conclusive, no, but this is a unique field of research, perhaps not so conventional as others. <br />The research is ongoing, and often tedious, but always rewarding. MHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01568176387299985125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-15233633158348600312013-02-08T16:33:01.530-08:002013-02-08T16:33:01.530-08:00Hopefully one last post, another thought about ene...Hopefully one last post, another thought about energy estimate of explosion:<br /><br />If the streetlights in Eureka went out temporarily because photocells designed to turn them off in the early morning were triggered by the light of the explosion, that could put a more quantitative lower limit on the radiative energy of the light than descriptions like "as bright as the light of day."<br /><br />On the explosion and subsequent events:<br /><br />This has some similarities to the Kecksburg incident of 1965 and Roswell (naturally).<br /><br />In both cases, somewhat like 1962, there was a large explosion followed by the later sighting and/or finding of a secondary object. (Yes, skeptics, I know you dispute at least the secondary crash sites.)<br /><br />For Kecksburg, a fireball was seen by thousands over multiple states, clearly exploding somewhere over the western end of Lake Erie. Nothing but a meteor bolide and that was the end of the story, according to the skeptics. Nothing happened at Kecksburg 200 miles to ESE.<br /><br />But not so fast. Even some witnesses to the explosion reported seeing debris flying out from the explosion point, including a larger chunk. (This would be true even for a meteor.) 50 miles beyond the explosion point, in and around Elyria, Ohio, metallic debris was reported raining down and starting grassfires. There were fireball and other object sightings beyond this point. A weather observer in Columbus reported seeing the fireball to his east, or in the direction of Kecksburg. The object was reported by the Pittsburgh airport as being in their airspace a few minutes later. Sonic booms were reported in western Pennsylvania attributed to the fireball. A Canadian RAF pilot sent a written report to Project Blue Book of being on a commercial airliner flying south of Pittsburgh, looking out his window to the east, and seeing a glowing object suddenly going into a steep dive.<br /><br />Then there the witnesses in and near Kecksburg seeing something maneuvering and descending to the ground, feeling a ground bump when it hit, and several witnesses seeing the acorn-shaped object in the woods, and then being hustled out on a flatbed by the Army covered with a tarp.<br /><br />So if the Kecksburg story is true, were there two incidents closely conjoined in time, a meteor fireball and a separate "UFO" incident, or were they connected?<br /><br />My theory is a distressed object descending from orbit, perhaps a main object exploding and something like an escape capsule continuing on. That would resemble a meteor bolide but not be a meteor. (A NASA spokesman in 2005 would admit NASA examining metallic debris form the object, claiming it was Russian.)<br /><br />Now Roswell, an explosion over the Foster Ranch but a small craft with crew continuing on and crashing about 20 or 30 miles east, the second crash site. Again this is possibly a main craft exploding but something like an escape capsule continuing on to crash elsewhere.<br /><br />1962 event: Explosion over Utah of main object but "escape capsule" continuing on, perhaps being seen near ground by AF Reserve pilot in Utah right afterward and later being seen over Nevada in Reno and Las Vegas and tracked by radar from Las Vegas back towards Utah and disappearing near Mesquite, NV.<br /><br />This takes us back to Scott Holloway and the Bunkerville (near Mesquite) miners who supposedly saw the object crash nearby.<br /><br />However, I do have to ask myself the question why an "escape capsule" would take such a highly convoluted and lengthy trip before finally touching down. There's nothing particularly special about Bunkerville for a landing site. And I can think of better places to hide out for a time.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-6974048163373304452013-02-08T15:26:24.360-08:002013-02-08T15:26:24.360-08:00A little more math on the energy of the explosion:...A little more math on the energy of the explosion: <br /><br />After the explosion near Eureka, people on the ground in the Eureka area heard explosion and rumbling sounds several minutes later, typically 3 or 4 minutes later. Sound travels about 12 miles a minute, so possibly the explosion was 3 or 4 dozen miles away, consistent with an explosion perhaps about 30 miles up (much higher and there wouldn't be enough atmosphere to carry the sound). The high altitude would also help explain why the flash of the explosion could be seen over virtually the entire western U.S., for distances of up to about 800 miles. <br /><br />But you still need one helluva large explosion to account for the huge area over it was seen. I would estimate an A-bomb size explosion in energy. (The flash of A-bomb ground explosions at the Nevada Test Site we could easily see from Las Vegas 90 miles away. At higher altitude, I wouldn't be surprised if they could be seen at 10 times this distance.) <br /><br />Another way to estimate the energy are from the reports that the ground was lit up as if it were daylight near the explosion. Assuming an explosion distance of 40 miles away and the same radiant energy/meter squared as the sun, you again get about an A-bomb's worth of energy (around 10^14 joules give or take). <br /><br />I won't bore you with the details, but if you assume a meteor traveling at 5 miles/sec or 8 km/sec and assuming 10% of the kinetic energy being converted into the energy of the explosion, you would need a mass on the order of at least a 10,000 metric tons! <br /><br />It would take a solid nickle-iron meteor about 20 feet across. That's one helluva of a "Lyrid" meteor, not nickle-iron, but caused by debris in a comet's tail, usually little more than dust to pebble-size ice or silicate material.<br /><br />So we can't rule a meteor out, but it seems unlikely.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-82084770655121953602013-02-08T15:23:18.532-08:002013-02-08T15:23:18.532-08:00On a more serious note, a little sighting math.
R...On a more serious note, a little sighting math.<br /><br />Reported fireball time over Denver: 8:17 p.m.<br /><br />Fireball explodes over Utah: 8:19 p.m.<br /><br />Eureka is 380 air miles due West of Denver.<br /><br />380 miles in about 2 minutes would be 11,400 mph. If we assume orbital speed of 5 miles/sec it would have taken 76 seconds to cover the distance, which would be within error limits given we don't know the exact time elapsed. So could possibly have been something initially traveling in the upper atmosphere at orbital speed around 50-60 miles up where it would start glowing from friction. This would also give it a flat-appearing horizontal trajectory if traveling tangentially to the earth.<br /><br />OK, so possibly a large meteor. Can't rule that out. (But see calculation next post of how large a meteor it would have taken--NOT a puny Lyriad.) <br /><br />Now the Nevada object, assuming it was a continuation of some part of the exploding object.<br /><br />From Eureka to around Reno, where it looped around and headed towards Las Vegas to the SE, first tracked on radar at 8:35 p.m. (7:35 in Vegas), or 16 minutes later. <br /><br />Eureka to Reno: 410 miles; Reno to Las Vegas: 340 miles; TOTAL ~750 miles.<br /><br />750 miles in 16 minutes about 3000 mph average. (You could possibly knock this down by about 25% to around 2200 mph since I know of no reports of anybody actually seeing anything over Reno, just something headed in an eastward direction.)<br /><br />The lower estimate would be about the top speed of the newly developed A-12 spy plane, but historically it didn't start flight-testing until 8 days later from Area 51 in mid-Nevada, and they certainly wouldn't start testing at the maximum speed. And this is a much higher speed than the U-2 spy plane, which also operated out of A-51. This is just one reason to rule out the later preposterous claim from a Pentagon AF intelligence officer recorded in Blue Book that it could possibly have been a U-2 or a balloon.<br /><br />Then we get to Las Vegas and the radar tracking by Nellis AFB of an object proceeding relatively slowly to the NE for 1/2 to the vicinity of Mesquite, NV, a distance of 70 miles, so 140 mph average. Altitude only about 10,000 feet. Then it was lost from radar, said to be heading south<br /><br />That's a very conventional speed and altitude. Could have been any number of conventional things. But jets were scrambled and nothing was ever identified as causing the radar tracking, at least officially. Weather balloons and airplanes leave behind paper trails, but nothing recorded was ever connected with this object sighting.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-53910760619429076852013-02-08T14:07:48.086-08:002013-02-08T14:07:48.086-08:00Scott Holloway wrote:
I have spoken to other resid...Scott Holloway wrote:<br /><i>I have spoken to other residents in Las Vegas when the event occurred. Some recall it vaguely, some not at all. As noted in the LV SUN article, a staff photographer, Frank Maggio, was a witness to the object. I have not been able to locate the reporter, Jim Stalnaker, if he is still alive.</i><br /><br />Some more trivia: As I mentioned, I lived there and neither saw anything or recall anything. I was only 13 at the time. May have something to do with living on the west side of town instead of the north or east side where the event would have been easier to see. Or I just wasn't outside at the time. <br /><br />Also the family newspaper was the Review-Journal, which didn't have much coverage, unlike the SUN. My father would have nothing to do with the SUN because there was bad blood between him and the publisher, Hank Greenspun.<br /><br />Greenspun died in 1989 and Scott says he interviewed the family, who don't know anything more (son Brian took over as publisher from his father). Our family knows the Greenspuns a little bit, but that doesn't seem to be of use here. <br /><br />I don't know anything about the reporter, Stalnaker, who would probably know the most. I'll see if I can find out. Frank Maggio, besides being a staff photographer, also wrote humor columns. He later married Miss Nevada, 1963, Cheryl Thompson of Las Vegas, who came in 3rd in the Miss America contest that year.<br /><br />Since the SkeptoN(a)uts like to label me a "conspiracist", let me go out on a limb saying that Ms. Thompson's marriage to Maggio and high placement in the Miss America contest was obviously connected to the 1962 Nevada UFO event, bribes to keep the two of them quiet about what they knew about the 1962 UFO crash. (You heard it here first!)<br /><br />But that's not all! When Kevin wrote about this case 4 years ago, it was noted that the SUN's files were burned in a fire on the same day Kennedy was assassinated. Not just the files, but the entire office and printing plant--arson. Greenspun had many enemies, but obviously the fire was connected to destroying the UFO files and what Greenspun had on Kennedy. (I only half joke about the latter, since Greenspun had been pardoned by Kennedy for running guns to the Israeli's and was later connected with the Watergate break-in. In addition to Democratic HQ at the Watergate, Atty. General John Mitchell also wanting the Plumbers to break into Greenspun's safe to retrieve rumored blackmail material he had on Democratic Presidential candidates.)<br /><br />Anyway, the Conspiracist's see connections in everything, and it's all TRUE!<br /><br />[Sarcasm mode OFF]David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-7178598838925354072013-02-08T12:27:38.211-08:002013-02-08T12:27:38.211-08:00Scott Holloway wrote:
The object seen in Nevada c...Scott Holloway wrote:<br /><br /><i>The object seen in Nevada changed direction at least twice, and was tracked on radar, not characteristic of a meteor.</i><br /><br />Scott, to clarify, do you mean the reported west to east trajectory reported from the Reno area, then the NE tracking out of Las Vegas?<br /><br /><i>In Utah, it landed twice, changed speed, shorted out a power plant, and continued on it's path.</i><br /><br />The reported time of passage over Denver was 8:17, with the explosion high over Utah at 8:19. So if a landing or two, it sounds like after the explosion, not before, as there would have been insufficient time. This may be connected to the AF Reserve sighting of the glowing object below their position at least 10 seconds after initially seeing the bright light above their position.<br /><br />As to the power plant, there were conflicting newspaper reports. Initially Stead AFB in Reno said the power supply in Eureka, Utah, was knocked out, e.g. this quote in a follow-up story from the Las Vegas Sun on April 20: "A spokesman for the 28th Air Division of the Air Force at Stead Air Force Base, Reno, said the power at Eureka, 40 miles east of Provo, Utah, was knocked out from the impact and word of the meteorite's landing was held up until power was restored."<br /><br />Against this, the usual wire service report, including citing Police Chief Joseph Bernini in Eureka, was all that happened was that the photocells were triggered by the bright flash and turned off the streetlights for a few seconds.<br /><br />I believe Kevin wrote in one of his books that he later interviewed Bernini who went with the photocell story. So I still don't know if power in Eureka was actually knocked out, as Stead AFB reported early on. Does anybody have any more information on this?<br /><br /><i>And the Blue Book file itself states that the same object was seen as far away as New York, although a separate report was created for the Nevada sighting.</i> <br /><br />Specifically Oneida, N.Y., but I have zero information on the sighting there, such as time, direction, etc. I can't find this particular sighting in BB files. Anybody?<br /><br />Apparently it was thought there was a connection, but why? <br /><br /><i>I believe that circumstances argue for the same object being responsible for all sightings. The Nevada sightings alone indicate something not a natural object.</i><br /><br />Something was sighted over Vegas leaving a prominent orange streak and tracked by radar at low altitude NE to the Mesquite area. Jets were scrambled. The Sheriff's dept. was going to search the area. That's about all we know for sure from newspapers and BB files. Blue Book also said maybe a balloon, but it was tracked by Nellis weather radar. You would think they would know what was flying and what about the prominent streak in the sky?<br /><br />Mesquite is about 70 miles NE of Vegas, so a 1/2 hour track would indicate a speed of about 140 mph, thus speed not necessarily contradictory with balloon but no real direct evidence to support it. Also the relatively low constant altitude of around 10,000' is not consistent with a typical balloon, and we have the report of the Bonanza airline pilot of a blazing object passing under his plane while flying at 11,000', although not clear if directly linked to the object tracked on radar at 10,000'. <br /> <br />Still lots of loose data points in this case. I wonder if FAA records would record the airline report and pin things down a bit.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-82807911354180887602013-02-07T19:21:51.147-08:002013-02-07T19:21:51.147-08:00I have spoken to other residents in Las Vegas when...I have spoken to other residents in Las Vegas when the event occurred. Some recall it vaguely, some not at all. As noted in the LV SUN article, a staff photographer, Frank Maggio, was a witness to the object. I have not been able to locate the reporter, Jim Stalnaker, if he is still alive. I am quite satisfied that the two witnesses to the actual crash are genuine. If I can locate a plausible crash site (and I have a general idea where it is) then another piece will be in place. <br />As I said, the behavior and documentation of the object in Nevada, even if distinct from the other sightings, argues for an aircraft of some sort, whether man made or not. <br />I hope to update my article in the future. Thank you for the comments, especially Mr. Rudiak.<br /><br />Scott HollowayMHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01568176387299985125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-63085978081160940822013-02-07T14:30:30.001-08:002013-02-07T14:30:30.001-08:00Miscellaneous interesting historical aviation/aero...Miscellaneous interesting historical aviation/aerospace factoids surrounding the fireball time period of April 18, 1962:<br /><br />1. According to an AP item in the Oakland Tribune April 19, 1962, accompanying the article on the Utah/Nevada event, an object emitting a bright light was sighted by the weather bureau over Columbia Missouri at 3:47 a.m moving from SSW to NW and visible for 5 minutes--obviously NOT a meteor. Also the Chicago weather bureau had reports of a "similar sighting" at Milwaukee and said it was a probable meteorite.<br /><br />2. Secret military satellite launch April 18: A "super secret satellite" that the Air Force refused to talk about was launched into a polar orbit from Vandenberg AFB, CA. (Las Vegas Sun, Washington Post, 4/19/62) (Probably a Corona spy satellite.)<br /><br />3. ABM & BM tests: On April 19, a Nike-Zeus anti-ballistic missile was test fired from Point Magu, CA, but failed to complete a test destruction of a simulated ICBM warhead. At Cape Canaveral, an airborne Skybolt ballistic missile was test-fired from a B-52. (Las Vegas Sun, 4/20/62)<br /><br />4. Unusual VIP visit to Nellis AFB: Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and Howard Cannon of Nevada, both Brig. Generals in the Air Force Reserve, and other elite members of the AF Reserve Association, made a surprise visit shrouded in secrecy to Las Vegas using JFK's personal airplane, landing at Nellis AFB 4/14 and leaving 4/15. The group was said to have inspected Vandenberg AFB prior to this. Cannon the next day said such inspection tours of important bases were common and he didn't know why secrecy had been imposed from Washington. (Las Vegas Sun, 4/17 & 4/18/62)<br /><br />5. Nuclear rocket program: On April 18, NASA said it would take over the nuclear rocket program at the Nevada Test Site to help meet its goals of space exploration to the planets in the late 1960s. (Las Vegas Sun, 4/18/62)<br /><br />6. ICBM's: In Denver on April 18, the Air Force declared its first squadron of underground Titan ICBM's at Lowry AFB near Denver was now combat ready. (SF Chronicle 4/19/62, adjacent to fireball story). At Cape Canaveral on April 18, a Jupiter IRM (intermediary range missile) was test fired with dummy warhead. (Las Vegas Review-Journal 4/19/62). (These were being installed in Italy and Turkey and would soon play a role in the Cuban missile crisis in October.)<br /><br />7. X-15 flights: At Edwards AFB, CA, on April 19, Joe Walker piloted an X-15 to 30 miles altitude. On April 20, Neil Armstrong piloted an X-15 to a new record altitude of 40 miles. (Las Vegas Sun, 4/20 & 4/21/1962) <br /><br />8. OTHER ROCKETS: On April 20 was the first fight of the Centaur liquid-hydrogen fuel rocket. On April 23 was the Ranger 4 moon rocket launch. On April 24 was the second Saturn rocket launch. (Sacramento Bee, 4/19/62<br /><br />9. April 26, the super-secret A-12 spy plane made its first test flight out of Area-51 in central Nevada. (Thus too late to have had any connection with the April 18 events.)<br /><br /> 10. Plane crashes: On April 19, a T33 jet trainer out of Hill AFB, UT, crashed on the northern end of the Great Salt Lake near Snowville, UT killing both crew members (Phoenix Gazette, 4/20/62). On April 20, a private plane out of Salt Lake crashed in NE Nevada near Wendover UT. (Berkeley Daily Gazette, 4/21 and 4/22/62)David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-60487198958965022422013-02-07T12:33:40.185-08:002013-02-07T12:33:40.185-08:00Anthony,
This much is certain from the newspaper ...Anthony,<br /><br />This much is certain from the newspaper reports and Blue Book files:<br /><br />1) A brilliant fireball with tail was seen crossing the Rocky mountain states, passing over Denver at 8:17 p.m., continuing on into Utah and at 8:19 there was a tremendous explosion of something near Eureka/Nephi Utah that was seen over the entire western U.S. A loud explosion and rumbling was heard by nearby ground observers several minutes later. This suggests a very large explosion akin to a nuclear blast at high altitude (but not too high or nothing would have been heard). Also witnesses reported the fireball in a horizontal trajectory, not a downward one, except perhaps at the very end. An AF reserve crew in the air reported seeing the bright light, perhaps the explosion flash, but the pilot also reported seeing a bright cigarette-shaped object below his position right afterward.<br /><br />2) At 8:35 p.m. Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, started radar tracking something at about 10,000-10,800 feet and continued tracking it for 32 minutes to the NE into the vicinity of Mesquite, NV, near the Utah and Arizona borders, then it seemed to suddenly disappear to the south. Already rattled by the previous fireball, AF spokespeople confirmed the scrambling of jets as a result of the radar track. It is unclear from what I've read whether the radar tracking was followed by another explosion.<br /><br />Air Force spokespeople also confirmed that a Bonanza airline pilot reported an unidentified object flying BENEATH his plane that was at 11,000 feet, or consistent with the 10,000 foot altitude of the radar track. However, exactly when and where this happened was never reported, though Bonanza operated out of Las Vegas. <br /><br />3) In addition, it was reported the same object was seen in New York (same or different?), that the fireball traveled east to west viewed from more eastern states, but in Nevada was generally reported as going west to east. The Nevada Highway Patrol said an object was seen traveling over Las Vegas.<br /><br />4. The Las Vegas Sheriff's Department was reported mounting a search in southern Nevada, whilst the Air Force said it was looking for something that had possibly come down in Utah near Eureka, then later said if something came down it was in an inaccessible wilderness area and the search was called off.<br /><br />Trying to put this altogether, if there was a meteor fireball, it was very large, lasted unusually long--over a minute and perhaps substantially more--and on a very unusual flat horizontal trajectory. If it was also sighted in New York and not seen again until Colorado, what happened in between? <br /><br />A meteor on a grazing, skipping trajectory with the atmosphere might be slowed down enough on initial pass through the atmosphere to temporarily skip out then be pulled back in again at about orbital velocity and continue on through the high atmosphere on a horizontal trajectory. This often happens when the source of a meteor shower is near the horizon, though the constellation Lyra was not to rise for over two hours. <br /><br />The main problem is the huge size of the reported fireball and explosion and the duration of the fireball. We would need a VERY big chunk of meteor material meters in size, not at all typical for a meteor shower produced by the debris from the tail of comet (mostly dust to occasional pebble size). I've also never heard of a fully documented meteor fireball event that lasted even a full minute much less over a minute.<br /><br />Then there were the reports of something going on immediately afterward, an object much lower down, passing beneath planes, tracked for a prolonged period on radar, and seen flying in different directions. Even if the first fireball was a meteor, what was the second object? The coincidence in timing is remarkable. Was the second object a continuation of the fireball event or something different?<br /><br />So very, very puzzling. An Air Force intelligence officer in response to an inquiry several months later tried to pass the incident(s) off as both consistent with a balloon and a U-2 plane, which was preposterous.David Rudiakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213284910238852377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11558306.post-37345065610741141992013-02-07T06:21:29.491-08:002013-02-07T06:21:29.491-08:00ps
Can I ask if it's clear that the explosions...ps<br />Can I ask if it's clear that the explosions can be tied back convincingly to one or more of the radar tracks? For example would an extrapolation of the trajectory bring whatever was reflecting radar into the right area at the right time?<br /><br />Does sound like the it's quite possibile that more than one thing was going on in all these different aspects - hence my caution<br /><br />Thanks and best wishes for their continued efforts to those putting the pieces of these cases togetherAnthony Muganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09500170864254300321noreply@blogger.com