A brilliant bright blue-green flash lit up a huge portion of the sky from western Minnesota to eastern Wisconsin Friday night -- the event was enough to make the night sky momentarily seem like daylight.
People from Bemidji to Duluth called authorities and the National Weather Service, wondering what was going on. The brilliant burst of light was enough to cast shadows.
Numerous police departments also fielded calls from frightened people, including the Becker County Sheriff in Detroit Lakes.
So what was it? Aliens? A UFO? A military missile or flare? An exploding jet liner?
Well, it was almost certainly a fireball meteorite, say meteorologists and local amateur astronomers. In fact, the earth is currently orbiting into that portion of space strewn with those extraterrestrial rocks that produce the Geminid meteor showers every year at this time.
The peak of the Geminids is usually on the night of Dec. 12 or 13. The blue-green color would be consistent with a typical Geminid meteor.
After a rather disappointing Leonid meteor shower performance last month, astronomer say this month's Geminids promise to be a much better show with 100 to 120 meteors per hour predicted.
The bright flash of last night was probably magnified somewhat by the fact that there was widespread fog in the atmosphere, which helped disperse the light, and make the flash appear closer to the ground that it really was.
It is also unlikely that enough of the space rock survive to strike the earth's surface -- although it is possible that a small position made it to terra firma.
CONTROVERSIAL BIGFOOT PHOTO TAKEN IN NORTHERN MINNESOTA
Comments
Here's some security camera footage showing the sky light up... very fast.
youtube: 7kBT0qbn68M
I observed the fireball that went across the Dec. 12th early morning sky (approx. 1:16am by my computer clock.) It was in the Northwest sky, with a northern trajectory. While the light on the ground appeared "bluish", like a flashbulb went off, the fireball itself was not - it was yellow-white, tinged with orange, very fiery. I wonder if the "blue" wasn't merely an artifact of nighttime and snow-covered ground. The fireball lasted 2 seconds. I've spoken with astronomers who say it is unlikely to have been a Geminid, based on the trajectory.
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