Flash, boom over NNY, Canada! What was it?
The nighttime sky over northern New York, winter 2012. Last night’s flash and boom illuminated the sky and left many wondering about their nature, including one speculation about Superman. Photo: John Stanford
Social and conventional media reports from a broad area suggest something – perhaps a meteorite? – made itself known just before 8 pm Tuesday night.
Judging from initial feedback, this may have been most noticeable in the Montreal area. “What was that mysterious boom?” asked the Montreal Gazette:
Although there is no official conformation of a meteorite, a spokesman for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada says all signs point to a meteor event.
“I’ve heard of reports south of Ottawa, through Cornwall, the Montreal area, folks down in northern New York state as well, said Andrew Fazekas.
“It’s really just observations from regular everyday folks that they heard a sonic boom that was preceded by a blue flash of light high in the sky that lasted maybe one or two seconds.”
TV station WPTZ reports fielding calls from viewers in their Plattsburgh/Burlington area wondering what they’d heard too. The comment field for that report says most thought it was thunder.
Social media comments from Montreal leaned more decidedly in favor of meteorite. Tweets quoted by CBC include this news flash from Paul Therrien: “Baby Superman landed in the West Island. We must find him!”
Did you notice anything odd in the sky last night? Where were you and what did you think it might be?
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I didn’t hear or see anything here in Ottawa. But has anyone checked to see if the Champlain Bridge in Montreal is still standing?
As many will recall, last February a meteorite came down across parts of Siberia in spectacular fashion, with significant damage and injuries.
At the time I was quite surprised at the abundance of videos recording the event from dash-cameras installed in cars. (Jeepers, why so many dash-cams?)
Apparently, the dash-cam is a popular form of defensive driving in Russia: capturing evidence that might help your case in the face of things like fake (or real accidents), road-rage assaults, corrupt police, etc. etc.
This New York Times post by Robert Mackey and Gerry Mullany “Spectacular Videos of Meteor Over Siberia” has all sorts of details.
It was probably a drone taking out a terrorist cell.
I didn’t look at the clock, but I heard what I thought was a limb falling from the heavy snow last night. There was no sign of anything big enough to make that noise when I got up this morning. I don’t turn my trail cams into Santa cams until after the holidays, so I’ll never know.