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I saw a meteor once when I was a kid. I was on the beach and it streaked across the sky and exploded into a bunch of other things that streaked a little furthe

I saw a meteor once when I was a kid. I was on the beach and it streaked across the sky and exploded into a bunch of other things that streaked a little further and faded out. I never really told anyone because it seem so preposterous that I wasn't really sure I had seen it at all. It was well out over the over the ocean a number of kilometeres and up very high - zero chance it was fireworks and there weren't ny on that night anyway.

nerpderp82 4y ago
I saw something similar, the weird thing is my brain hallucinated sound that couldn't have possibly been there. It was on dark winter night during a ferry crossing and the chunks intersected the horizon.
- infradig 4y ago
  A fizzing crackling sound?
  - nerpderp82 4y ago
    Crossed with a low frequency white noise like howl. I see "with sound" on the meteorite spotter page, but it still seems like it was made up. Interesting, https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1932PA.....40..289W#:~:text=If%20the%20meteor%20has%20come,this%20a%20rumble%20or%20roar https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1932PA.....40..289W#:~:text=.... https://www.science.org/content/article/new-theory-may-explain-music-meteors#:~:text=Meteors%20release%20huge%20amounts%20of,the%20sound%20that%20accompanies%20meteors https://www.science.org/content/article/new-theory-may-expla.... So maybe not.
    - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
      I was on a sailing ship in the Atlantic, on the middle of the night watch, when a large meteor streaked across the sky. It burned with several colours (white, green, red, maybe, can’t remember exactly) and made a strong fizzling sound, like something in a hot frying pan with too much oil. I know that couldn’t be from the meteor’s sound waves, so this is the first sensible explanation.
    - exitb 4y ago
      I'd be very surprised if that's the explanation and would rather suspect something like the "noisy GIFs"[1], where a strong visual cue may cause the brain to attach a sound that sounds reasonable. That's also quite easy to verify - since we have visual sky surveillance, why not add microphones and confirm it really happens, no need to rely on random reports. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/noisygifs https://www.reddit.com/r/noisygifs
  - NovaDudely 4y ago
    Back in 2004 I saw a meteor and there was a distinct fizzy crackling sound but it was coming off the cars next to me in the car park. Looks like it is a known thing - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4201328/Study-identifies-cause-strange-sounds-meteor.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4201328/Stud...
- itronitron 4y ago
  I saw one of these as well, sitting on top of a mountain with a friend. We were there to watch the Perseid meteor shower and were seeing small ones every few minutes, then a much larger one came across the sky. The head of it was glowing orange and green and I could also hear a crackling/burning noise. My friend saw the same thing and we were both so freaked out by it that we headed back to camp shortly afterwards.
- rout39574 4y ago
  Not a hallucination. Black body radiation coming off that thing that's nearly sun-hot pumps a lot of energy out into the world. Everything that can absorb some of it does so, and twitches. We tend to think of radio receivers as something special, but they're highly optimized versions of processes going on all the time all around us. The clearest example I've personally experienced of this was out in the boonies watching a meteor shower with an astronomy club. After a few times hearing my glasses "hiss" just as I was seeing a meteor I asked about it and the fellow in charge (chair of the college astro department) filled us in. It was freakin' awesome.
JoshTriplett 4y ago
Do you remember the day, and location? There may be corroborating reports.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  It was 40 years ago in Newcastle, Australia at Merewether beach. I can’t even remember what I did last week.
  - LeonB 4y ago
    “The 1978 New South Wales fireball“ 4:44am I think - would’ve been visible from Merewether > Abstract A very large meteor fireball passed through the atmosphere above the east coast of New South Wales early in the morning of 7 April 1978. It was seen at 04.44 AEST (18.44 UT, 6 April) by hundreds of people from the cities of Sydney and Newcastle who deluged the news media with telephoned sightings. The resulting publicity led to the collection of many reports, of which 19 were useful in defining the trajectory and ground track of the fireball. I define here the ground track, which is shown in Fig. 1, and include the locations of the eye-witnesses https://www.nature.com/articles/285464a0 https://www.nature.com/articles/285464a0
    - andrewstuart 4y ago
      Nice research! However 40 years ago was 1983 so unlikely to be same event.
      - LeonB 4y ago
        This article https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127209576?searchTerm=Meteor%20Bright%20light https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127209576?searchT... mentions: “On June 19 last, a brilliant fireball was seen over a large part of NSW and the ACT” …from 1985 referring back to 1984. But most newspapers from that era not searchable yet. We have to get older first.
  - LeonB 4y ago
srcreigh 4y ago
In 2008-2010 there was something that lit up the night sky like day over haldimand county in Ontario Canada
terlisimo 4y ago
I saw a big one in the evening during army bootcamp. For a second or two it was as bright as day. One of the guys says "wtf was that?" and another replied "it's a falling star" (literal term we use for shooting stars in our language). A third guy asks, "so why do stars fall?". Silence. I ventured, "uh, guys... stars don't fall. Stars are like the Sun, just really far away. What we saw was a meteor, a rock that flew through space and burned up when it hit the atmosphere." Half the squad looked at me like I just said that babies are delivered by storks. I could tell they thought that was total bullshit but couldn't offer an alternative explanation and call me on it. It was then that I realized how smart and educated the average person is. Army service was mandatory back then so everyone had to go.
- askonomm 4y ago
  For a moment I thought you are an Estonian, because we, too, call it a falling star. But our military service is still mandatory :(
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    We call it a falling star in English too (though “shooting star” is more common, at least in my experience).
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      I have never heard the term "falling star" before this thread.
      - Shared404 4y ago
        Can second having heard "falling star" in English as well, though "shooting star" is more common. Maybe a result of regional dialect/language exchange in high immigration areas?
      - OoBabybaby 4y ago
        Yeah, you have to make sure you put them in your pocket. Save them for a Rainy Day. Never let it fade away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJlHWESyLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJlHWESyLI \o/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nerpderp82 4y ago

I saw something similar, the weird thing is my brain hallucinated sound that couldn't have possibly been there. It was on dark winter night during a ferry crossing and the chunks intersected the horizon.

infradig 4y ago
A fizzing crackling sound?
- nerpderp82 4y ago
  Crossed with a low frequency white noise like howl. I see "with sound" on the meteorite spotter page, but it still seems like it was made up. Interesting, https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1932PA.....40..289W#:~:text=If%20the%20meteor%20has%20come,this%20a%20rumble%20or%20roar https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1932PA.....40..289W#:~:text=.... https://www.science.org/content/article/new-theory-may-explain-music-meteors#:~:text=Meteors%20release%20huge%20amounts%20of,the%20sound%20that%20accompanies%20meteors https://www.science.org/content/article/new-theory-may-expla.... So maybe not.
  - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
    I was on a sailing ship in the Atlantic, on the middle of the night watch, when a large meteor streaked across the sky. It burned with several colours (white, green, red, maybe, can’t remember exactly) and made a strong fizzling sound, like something in a hot frying pan with too much oil. I know that couldn’t be from the meteor’s sound waves, so this is the first sensible explanation.
  - exitb 4y ago
    I'd be very surprised if that's the explanation and would rather suspect something like the "noisy GIFs"[1], where a strong visual cue may cause the brain to attach a sound that sounds reasonable. That's also quite easy to verify - since we have visual sky surveillance, why not add microphones and confirm it really happens, no need to rely on random reports. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/noisygifs https://www.reddit.com/r/noisygifs
- NovaDudely 4y ago
  Back in 2004 I saw a meteor and there was a distinct fizzy crackling sound but it was coming off the cars next to me in the car park. Looks like it is a known thing - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4201328/Study-identifies-cause-strange-sounds-meteor.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4201328/Stud...
itronitron 4y ago
I saw one of these as well, sitting on top of a mountain with a friend. We were there to watch the Perseid meteor shower and were seeing small ones every few minutes, then a much larger one came across the sky. The head of it was glowing orange and green and I could also hear a crackling/burning noise. My friend saw the same thing and we were both so freaked out by it that we headed back to camp shortly afterwards.
rout39574 4y ago
Not a hallucination. Black body radiation coming off that thing that's nearly sun-hot pumps a lot of energy out into the world. Everything that can absorb some of it does so, and twitches. We tend to think of radio receivers as something special, but they're highly optimized versions of processes going on all the time all around us. The clearest example I've personally experienced of this was out in the boonies watching a meteor shower with an astronomy club. After a few times hearing my glasses "hiss" just as I was seeing a meteor I asked about it and the fellow in charge (chair of the college astro department) filled us in. It was freakin' awesome.

JoshTriplett 4y ago

Do you remember the day, and location? There may be corroborating reports.

andrewstuart 4y ago
It was 40 years ago in Newcastle, Australia at Merewether beach. I can’t even remember what I did last week.
- LeonB 4y ago
  “The 1978 New South Wales fireball“ 4:44am I think - would’ve been visible from Merewether > Abstract A very large meteor fireball passed through the atmosphere above the east coast of New South Wales early in the morning of 7 April 1978. It was seen at 04.44 AEST (18.44 UT, 6 April) by hundreds of people from the cities of Sydney and Newcastle who deluged the news media with telephoned sightings. The resulting publicity led to the collection of many reports, of which 19 were useful in defining the trajectory and ground track of the fireball. I define here the ground track, which is shown in Fig. 1, and include the locations of the eye-witnesses https://www.nature.com/articles/285464a0 https://www.nature.com/articles/285464a0
  - andrewstuart 4y ago
    Nice research! However 40 years ago was 1983 so unlikely to be same event.
    - LeonB 4y ago
      This article https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127209576?searchTerm=Meteor%20Bright%20light https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127209576?searchT... mentions: “On June 19 last, a brilliant fireball was seen over a large part of NSW and the ACT” …from 1985 referring back to 1984. But most newspapers from that era not searchable yet. We have to get older first.
- LeonB 4y ago

srcreigh 4y ago

In 2008-2010 there was something that lit up the night sky like day over haldimand county in Ontario Canada

terlisimo 4y ago

I saw a big one in the evening during army bootcamp. For a second or two it was as bright as day. One of the guys says "wtf was that?" and another replied "it's a falling star" (literal term we use for shooting stars in our language). A third guy asks, "so why do stars fall?". Silence. I ventured, "uh, guys... stars don't fall. Stars are like the Sun, just really far away. What we saw was a meteor, a rock that flew through space and burned up when it hit the atmosphere." Half the squad looked at me like I just said that babies are delivered by storks. I could tell they thought that was total bullshit but couldn't offer an alternative explanation and call me on it. It was then that I realized how smart and educated the average person is. Army service was mandatory back then so everyone had to go.

askonomm 4y ago
For a moment I thought you are an Estonian, because we, too, call it a falling star. But our military service is still mandatory :(
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  We call it a falling star in English too (though “shooting star” is more common, at least in my experience).
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    I have never heard the term "falling star" before this thread.
    - Shared404 4y ago
      Can second having heard "falling star" in English as well, though "shooting star" is more common. Maybe a result of regional dialect/language exchange in high immigration areas?
    - OoBabybaby 4y ago
      Yeah, you have to make sure you put them in your pocket. Save them for a Rainy Day. Never let it fade away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJlHWESyLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJlHWESyLI \o/

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]