E&P: Meteor Crash Report Was a Hoax

[gauguin57]

from Editor & Publisher ...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000524192

AP Meteor Crash Report Was a Hoax

By Joe Strupp

Published: June 03, 2004 12:20 PM EST

NEW YORK Associated Press editors were forced to retract an earlier report that a meteorite might have hit near Olympia, Wash., this morning after discovering that a source, one Bradley Hammermaster, claiming to be an astronomy professor, had perpetrated a hoax.

"An early report that a meteor might have hit turned out to be false," said AP spokesman Jack Stokes. "It looks like a version (of the story) was killed because it talked about a meteorite hitting." He said AP was reviewing how the error occurred.

[Minstrel Boy]

1. The meteor is NOT a hoax. There was a prank call.

It's like a Howard Stern fan calling a TV station during breaking news coverage, and saying "Bababoey!" It doesn't mean the story is a joke.

Associated Press:

"There was some question as to whether it was a piece of space junk burning up, but it was not," said Geoff Chester, a spokesman for the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. "As far as I've been able to figure out, it was simply a rock falling out of the sky, as they are wont to do on occasion."

...

Toby Smith, a University of Washington astronomy lecturer who specializes in meteorites, said the skybursts were reported over a wide area around 2:40 a.m.

Witnesses along a 60-mile swath of the Puget Sound region from the Tacoma area to Whidbey Island and as far as 260 miles to the east said the sky lit up brilliantly, and many reported booms as if from one or more explosions.

"It made a pretty big bang," said Petty Officer Andrew Davis at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, 40 miles north of Seattle.




http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/247-06032004-310845.html

[RobertSeattle]

3. More info

http://www.komonews.com/stories/31552.htm

Click the Watch Video. (You'll need QuickTime). So far, I haven't seen any video of the sky or the sound - all of these are indirect views of the flash.

[Mrs. Overall]

2. Seattle NPR is reporting now that a meteor the size of a computer monitor

disintegrated over W. Washington at around 3:00 am. This news is coming from a tracking agency in Washington DC.

Something definitely lit up the sky and caused explosions. Everyone in Washington is talking about it.

I was awakened by the explosions and my house actually rattled.

Just the original caller claiming to be an expert was a hoax--the event happened.

[DoktorGreg]

4. Firmly dawns tin foil hat.

This is the real reason for Tenet's resignation.

[girlphoenix]

5. It was a rocket/satellite that exploded

I heard through the grapevine that a decommissioned satellite/rocket exploded spreading a relatively large debris field in orbit. Just to let folks know, debris that falls toward the earth is likely to disintegrate before it reaches the ground. This will be more of an issue for active / launching rockets as it will take some time to map out where 'safe' trajectories are with respect to the pieces left in orbit.

Looks like these were some man-made meteorites.

-the girl

::edited to correct spelling::

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. OK - it was another one of them weather balloons then?

.
.
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:shrug:

:shrug:


:silly: