Meteors and UFOs

[Cackalacky]

my guess is that this one in russia was probably slightly bigger than a medicine ball. they just cant see all of that stuff. and yes, hitting any major city would be devastating. the universe is unstoppable.

True. The earth is swimming in a sea of debris and we are constantly passing through this debris in our orbit around the sun. Most of it is small and burns up before we see it. Sometimes we see them in "showers". Then there are the ones of the size of a basketball to car size. These are harder to see and can make it to the earth. It is my understanding the some objects are too small to track anddetect but big enough to do what happened.

cool site

Near-Earth Object Program
These are the ones we known about.
"Since most NEAs do not have a known reflectivity, or albedo, this albedo must be estimated before the H values, representing intrinsic brightness, can be converted to an approximate diameter. Pravec et al (2012) determined that, for their sample of 583 main-belt asteroids and NEAs, the mean albedos and their standard deviations are 0.057 (±0.013) for the Tholen/Bus/DeMeo C/G/B/F/P/D types and 0.197 (±0.051) for the S/A/L types. Since the albedos for NEAs are most likely to be either approximately 6% for asteroids of the C-type and associated taxonomic classes or 20% for asteroids of the more populous S-type and associated taxonomic classes, we have used an approximate mean value of 14% albedo and an H value of 17.75 to represent a one kilometer spherical NEA. Since the determined H values are uncertain, and likely biased by a few tenths (see Pravec et al., 2012, Icarus) and the single 14% albedo is only a rough mean representing a bimodal albedo distribution, the estimated numbers of one kilometer and larger sized objects in the tables below are very rough. However, these statistics are useful for monitoring the annual NEA discovery progress."

Thus objects with low observable albedo (reflectivity) are difficult to spot and track.

 

[JT_IRISH]

It's 40 time must be astronomical..

 

[Old Man Mike]

For whatever this is worth: If the thing was indeed "eleven tons" and it was a "nickel-iron" which would give it the greatest chance not to break up into very small fragments, then a VERY rough calculation would be that the thing was [prior to breakup] something like 100x70 feet in size. That's a pretty small object to pick up in deep space and you almost have to get real lucky to do it [in my understanding].

I was once blessed with witnessing a beautiful horizon-to-horizon fireball which cruised across the Kalamazoo sky tossing off pieces which burned like green and red lightglobes appropriate for a celestial Christmas Tree. The weirdest thing about it is that it appeared outside a lecture room window just as I was about to begin a talk [requested by the students] on UFOs. No kidding. Cast a bit of a strange aura over the talk after THAT "introduction".

 

[woolybug25]

They said on the news that the meteor that hit Russia was the size of a school bus. Are they mistaken? They also said 750 people were injured.

 

[Old Man Mike]

"School bus" is probably good. My calculation was for a volume only one foot thick. So if we made it eight feet thick, it would be roughly 12x9x8. Close enough to a schoolbus.

Actually I'm surprised that my rough fooling around was that close.

 

[woolybug25]

Actually I'm surprised that my rough fooling around was that close.

I'm not surprised.

 

[GoldenIsThyFame]

I just want to get this correct, the damage and injuries were caused by the explosion in the sky and not it actually impacting earth correct?

 

[RuntheBall]

I just want to get this correct, the damage and injuries were caused by the explosion in the sky and not it actually impacting earth correct?

In my understanding the explosion in the sky caused glass to shatter which in turn causes most of the injuries. Maybe someone with more knowledge can clear that up a bit more though.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Like any modern bomb, the greatest damage is inflicted by detonating the weapon up in the air so that the blast wave gives maximum coverage damage. The actual "shrapnel" coming from a bomb or a meteorite covers very little area and one has to have bad luck to be hit by that.

Military weapon-makers have known the "desirability" of exploding bombs prior to impact all the way back into WWII. A big R&D push was begun to invent a so-called "proximity fuse" which would detonate at a certain height, thus eliminating the hit-or-miss erraticness of "timers". In a way, meteors have their own structural proximity "fuses" as they will last coming down into our atmosphere depending upon their chemical structure and surface area. Once that surface heats to the proper amount for the individual meteor, the mass disrupts, and the smaller parts [having great heatable surface area] then detonate.



Urgent notice...... this information is classified Top-Secret-Q-Ultra.

Eat your computer after reading......................End_____of_____Line.

 

[HereComeTheIrish]

Like any modern bomb, the greatest damage is inflicted by detonating the weapon up in the air so that the blast wave gives maximum coverage damage. The actual "shrapnel" coming from a bomb or a meteorite covers very little area and one has to have bad luck to be hit by that.

Military weapon-makers have known the "desirability" of exploding bombs prior to impact all the way back into WWII. A big R&D push was begun to invent a so-called "proximity fuse" which would detonate at a certain height, thus eliminating the hit-or-miss erraticness of "timers". In a way, meteors have their own structural proximity "fuses" as they will last coming down into our atmosphere depending upon their chemical structure and surface area. Once that surface heats to the proper amount for the individual meteor, the mass disrupts, and the smaller parts [having great heatable surface area] then detonate.



Urgent notice...... this information is classified Top-Secret-Q-Ultra.

Eat your computer after reading......................End_____of_____Line.

RECRUITING VIOLATION RIGHT HERE!!!!

 

[phgreek]

Meteor trackers identify all the ones that miss but miss the one that hits?

...My god, I just solved one of life's mysteries.

The NCAA runs the meteor tracker program...

 

[ND NYC]

...My god, I just solved one of life's mysteries.

The NCAA runs the meteor tracker program...

you were close...but that is really describing Mike Farrell

 

[JughedJones]

Do all cars in Russia have a dash cam? What is going on over there?

BTW: The internet went to another level once those Russians got a hold of some video cameras and YouTube.

Yes, actually they do. They're called GoPros and almost everyone has them so they can sue after an accident.

Just learned about this, crazy huh?

 

[Cackalacky]

pretty decent summary of the size of NE objects. Looks like <100 m are difficult to identify and track as well.

 

[fortwayne_nd]

Meteor trackers identify all the ones that miss but miss the one that hits?

Imagine, a scientist not knowing everything!! They still don't have an answer for getting life from inanimate material. Calling Dr. Frankenstein, calling Eye-gor.

Blucher!!

 

[fortwayne_nd]

"School bus" is probably good. My calculation was for a volume only one foot thick. So if we made it eight feet thick, it would be roughly 12x9x8. Close enough to a schoolbus.

Actually I'm surprised that my rough fooling around was that close.

You are THE Man, OMM. I take it on faith if you type it.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Well... too much pressure. I, afterall "don't even know how to get life from inanimate matter". ... perhaps THE most difficult complexity in science, by the way.

I had about a foot-thick file on the latter once, but my old head doesn't want to battle it anymore. Something about the work of Cyril Ponnamperuna, Ilya Prigogine, prebiotic biochemistry, and a bunch of other long words.

For everyone's sanity, best left unsaid.

Only Greyhammer, afterall, could read it.

 

[Ultimate Penn St. Hater]

The videos are incredible

 

[Black Irish]

It's 40 time must be astronomical..

Yeah, but it's GPA sucks so it'll have to go to a SEC school.

BTW, funny, reps.

 

[BobD]

pretty decent summary of the size of NE objects. Looks like <100 m are difficult to identify and track as well.

Is it my bad eyes and the fact that I'm viewing this on a Kindle or does that look like a turd chart?

 

[Black Irish]

That meteor was originally going to crash into the heart of downtown Moscow but Vladimir Putin gave it a mean look so it crashed into the countryside instead so as not to anger him. Then Putin looked to the heavens and said "what else you got?"

 

[dshans]

Only Greyhammer, afterall, could read it.

Hold on a gosh darn minute there, fellah!

I have every confidence that I could read it ...



Comprehension is a separate matter.

 

[BGIF]

Russian meteorite 1,000 times bigger than originally thought | Fox News

Based on infrasound data the 10 ton meteorite is now sized at 10,000 Tons, the weight of 170 M1 Abrahms Tanks.

NASA pegs it with a diameter of 49 feet.

 

[RDU Irish]

Russian meteorite 1,000 times bigger than originally thought | Fox News

Based on infrasound data the 10 ton meteorite is now sized at 10,000 Tons, the weight of 170 M1 Abrahms Tanks.

NASA pegs it with a diameter of 49 feet.

Favorite quote from the article "Space is pretty big."


Sooo, OMM what is your UFO synopsis? My uncle is a retired physics prof who is big on that scene, actually has contracted a fair amount of work with government in the past too. He is convinced we are not alone.

 

[IrishLion]

IE is going to get shut down by the government with all of the conspiracy/UFO talk

 

[Old Man Mike]

The new NASA estimates answer the lingering mystery here of how the object could have caused so much damage while detonating so high in the air. The increase in guessed size does a lot to beef up the blast wave and even some shrapnel effects.



As to UFOs: too big a topic to give CliffNotes on. I've just [c. last August] finished, as lead author of a nine-man team, an almost 600 page book describing the government's activities on managing the subject, entirely from their own released FOIA documents. By going "behind the mirror" this way, we were able to write an objective book, and an academic history. The resulting documentary narrative blows all the manufactured skepticism about the topic away, and indicates a deadly serious intelligence community trying to avoid national security issues associated with this problem. As to whether unidentified aerial technology has been engaged in violations of US airspace, the book shows that this is beyond reasonable doubt. The book does not engage in loose hypotheticals as to what this apparent aerial technology is, and why it's around, and does not do so deliberately. The UFO History Group refuses to act in a "beyond-the-evidence" way.

The title of the book is "UFOs and Government", if that is of interest to anyone. Our targeted audience is university libraries and we just received a very positive recommendation for purchase in the library association journal CHOICE.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

 

[Ndaccountant]

The new NASA estimates answer the lingering mystery here of how the object could have caused so much damage while detonating so high in the air. The increase in guessed size does a lot to beef up the blast wave and even some shrapnel effects.



As to UFOs: too big a topic to give CliffNotes on. I've just [c. last August] finished, as lead author of a nine-man team, an almost 600 page book describing the government's activities on managing the subject, entirely from their own released FOIA documents. By going "behind the mirror" this way, we were able to write an objective book, and an academic history. The resulting documentary narrative blows all the manufactured skepticism about the topic away, and indicates a deadly serious intelligence community trying to avoid national security issues associated with this problem. As to whether unidentified aerial technology has been engaged in violations of US airspace, the book shows that this is beyond reasonable doubt. The book does not engage in loose hypotheticals as to what this apparent aerial technology is, and why it's around, and does not do so deliberately. The UFO History Group refuses to act in a "beyond-the-evidence" way.

The title of the book is "UFOs and Government", if that is of interest to anyone. Our targeted audience is university libraries and we just received a very positive recommendation for purchase in the library association journal CHOICE.

Congrats my man.

 

[IrishinTN]

So can this be the UFO thread, too? we saw something in the late 70's. We saw it several times, but once my father, my brother and I saw it on my way into Elementary school (I was in 5th grade) open house. The sun was setting and we all looked up and there it was. There were three little league baseball fields in the field to our right and it was bigger than all of them. Flying about 10 mph with only the sound of rushing wind. Maybe a slight hum. We stood there open-mouthed. I am not saying it had to be little green men, but it surely was more than the technology we knew about in the late 70's.

No, I was never probed, captured or visited in my bedroom. It is just what the initials stand for- an unexplained flying object. I would sure love to know what it was. My parents documented all our sightings, even called the Air Force to report it. They were not impressed.

 

[Old Man Mike]

To TN: by the late 1970s, the USAF had long decided that although they couldn't solve this apparently technological mystery, perhaps it was no longer important for them to spend money trying to do so. They had dumped their dedicated UFO data collection and analysis project [Blue Book] at Wright-Patterson AFB and were responding only with minimal put-off letters to witnesses' letters like that of your parents.

Why had they taken this stance? That answer is completely clear now [you may disagree with their thinking but the fact of their thinking is "on paper"].

Once the phenomenon began in earnest in WWII, the intel community was extremely concerned. Naturally they thought that this was, first, NAZI technology, and then Soviet technology. Over the next decade into the mid-1950s, they scrambled about trying to nail this down, but finally it became obvious that the Russkis were just as confused and ignorant as we were. But still --- THESE were violations of US airspace. Why not pursue the things harder?

We civilians are completely naive about the intel community mind. That mind cares about only one thing: national security --- definitely not "science" nor "curiosity". They put UFOs on the back burner [as to a research project] because, as the years went by, "they" didn't DO anything, didn't seem like they were about to do anything, were beginning to be seen as a "nuisance" [example: tripping off non-serious radar responses], and, we didn't seem to be able to do anything about them anyway.

SO, and this was backed powerfully by heavyweight Hawks like General Curtis LeMay [who believed that any military appropriations dollar NOT spent on nuclear deterrent to the Soviets was tantamount to Treason], the "handling" of the UFO problem was to be just monitoring and "crowd control".

This "crowd control" policy is why you have the policies, and culturally-instilled attitudes, about UFOs that you've grown up with. So why, if the things seemed to pose no threat to national security, did the government determine that a policy of complete denial and, within limits, mockery of the phenomenon was appropriate. They had experiences with the labile craziness of the American public. Not only had "we" gone nuts over things like Orson Welles War of the Worlds hoax, but the massive UFO wave of 1952, centered upon Washington DC itself, caused such hysteria that military lines of communication were interrupted by 45 minutes. That sort of delay during a Soviet strike was not a good scenario. A CIA panel in early 1953 then recommended the "information management" plan. This was accepted by the USAF and became policy across the services. Such information management was insidious, even including the manipulation of tv documentaries like the one produced by Walter Cronkite in 1966. By the way, naive readers need not take any of this from these typed words, it's all documented, black and white, from primary sources, some even reproduced directly in the book.

The problem, as adjudged by the psychological warfare strategists, was not in the phenomenon but in ourselves. So WE had to be managed in the interests of national security. In the words of the movie: YOU CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!.

The intel community was probably correct. UFO inspired riots or roaming gun-mobs occurred later in Mississippi, Portland, Lima Peru, London, somewhere in Spain. People committed suicide in receiving some UFO news in Japan. And we hosted more than one suicidal UFO cult here in the US.


I'm stopping. No need to re-write the book.