SO I live on the west coast of the USA. Twilight is my favorite time of the day. As I was outside watching the sun come up I saw a bright star (like Venus) but it was too bright for Venus(the blue sky I mean), and it was moving real slow. Well about 10 minutes later it comes crashing into the atmosphere making a good show with a 1-1/2 inch trail of orange(ish) color not star color. What the hell was it is what I am trying to find out, it was going North to North East a bit from the West Coast of USA. I thought it might be SpaceShipOne but they flew on Wednesday so no. Maybe one of their competition? CNN or BBC has nothing on it. It was real and I watched it crash into the atmoshpere. Not trying to say UFO ALIEN, but I'd still like to know if a satalite crashed or it was China or another country's space program. Any real info would be appreciated thanks.
"West Coast" takes in a lot of territory, comprising the Pacific coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. What part of the "West Coast"?
The object you saw sounds like a bolide; a medium sized meteor breaking up in the atmosphere. I have seen one myself; an excellent phenomenon. Venus is also visible in the morning sky; did you observe this planet? How bright was your object compared to Venus?
Hum, Reno sounds like it`s near Colorado... Seems there was a fireball seen at around 5:50 to 6am MDT this morning from Bow Mar, on the south side of Denver, and from Fort Collins, north of Denver, (but with conflicting descriptions of direction.) http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?...MPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf
Well, technically, an asteroid is the name for an orbiting rock in space; none of these are visible with the naked eye. The name for a rock that enters the atmosphere is a meteor; if it reaches the ground it becomes a meteorite. A bolide is a meteor which is brighter than Venus, which is why I asked the question.
I guess Blobrana's link sounds like the most accurate example of what I saw. And if it was a 'once in a lifetime' event like it claims hell yea I saw it then. Was still an exellent show, and glad whatever it was I saw it. Thanks for the links people.
Probably some flying saucer from an alien world who got off course and crash landed in the Pacific ocean somewhere...........Not a news worthy item these days! Atta Boy
Hum, as an update (see/find my website ) i discovered that The University of Colorado at Boulder has a news release about a meteorite fall (a witnessed event), reported by a family that “<i>had just walked out their back door into the yard at 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 5, when the meteorite flew over their heads and landed about 100 feet [33 meters] ahead of them</i>” in Berthoud, between Denver and Fort Collins. It is described as weighing “<i>more than two pounds</i>” (960gm) and “<i>appears to be made of igneous rock,</i>” which means it came from an object no smaller than the very largest Main Belt asteroids... http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2004/304.html and http://www.colorado.edu/fiske/
Igneous rock generally means it has come from the Vesta group of asteroids, which seem to have had some kind of geological activity in their past; perhaps Vesta was a little planet, once. Or the rock could have come from the Moon or other large object.