19 March 2011

Arizona Meteor Fireball??? 18MAR2011

Search queries indicate meteor in Arizona ~7:45 pm local time 18MAR2011


Based upon witness reports I now think that this may have been a night skydiving pyro-techniques jump by the Arizona Skyhawks or some other group (although their schedule does not indicate that they had a jump last night). - Tokyo

Markers indicate sighting locations of 18MAR2011 Fireball
(c) 2011 LunarMeteorite*Hunter- Tokyo/ Google Earth
Email from Reader:
Meteor or something in AZ
Wow!
I saw a stunning meteor tonight in Surprise AZ. Lasted some 30-40 sec
Pete Fredricks


Avondale, Arizona Fireballs 7:45pm 18MAR2011
Mar 19 2011, 2:20 PM
Guest504 (guest):Looked like fireballs in the sky. 3 or 4 of them, orange in color.Avondale, Arizona at around 7:45pm.

Laveen, AZ 
Laveen, AZ  lasted 1min started two fire balls split into 4 awesome
Crystal Chance

Goodyear, AZ
I saw the meteor too. I live in goodyear and was sitting in my backyard, and saw a fireball falling from the sky and then it exploded into pieces. Then about 15 minutes later there was an explosion and the sky lit up orange. This was awesome, never have I ever seen this before. - Anon.

driving on I-10 E, AZ
My wife and I saw it too while driving on I-10 E! It started as one big chunk high in the sky, and then broke into 3 pieces, and eventually broke into 5 pieces and we saw it scatter in the Surprise/El Mirage area east of the 101. It was pretty spectacular! - Charlie

Surprise, AZ
Yeah I saw that out here in Surprise too. It was in the South sky. I saw it and it lasted for almost 2 minutes, had time to call other people to let them see too. It in one piece for half of the time with an long and bright trail. Then it split up into what I counted as 5 equally sized pieces that seemed to float for a bit and spread out. Looked like the new movie battle: los angeles. Pretty awesome experience I was driving and had to pull over. -Anon.

Peoria AZ.
Hello, I took my kids for a bicycle ride and at 7:50 p.m we witnessed the huge light in the sky, then it stopped and started to divide into 8-9 light balls that formed a semi-circle!!! My 6 year old Son said, look Mommy is a shooting star make a Wish!!! But THAT was NOT a shooting star, IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!
I am in Peoria AZ. We are east from the sighting. What caught most my attention is that once the Big fire stopped and started separating, it formed a uniform and very organized semicircle shape and these bright circles where "Suspended" meaning they stopped falling. I really hope someone recorded it on video or took pictures!!!First one for Us, but sooo exciting to witness! - Anon.


Glendale, AZ
I live in glendale az, I was driving home when I saw some lights streaming down from the sky. I first saw 2 streaks of lights then it separated to about 4 streaks, it lasted for a quite a while. -Elizabeth


Sun City, AZ
We saw this also. At first we thought it was a meteor then it split into three as several people have said. My husband thought it was a plane as there was an air show yesterday but I thought that wouldn't be happening at night. What an awesome, once in a lifetime sight. - Anon.

Anyone with a witness report please contact me; Thank you! LunarMeteoriteHunter@gmail.com

1 comment:

Phil Allsopp said...

On the evening of March 18, 2011 we had just picked up our daughter and her boyfriend from Sky Harbor around 7:45pm - or thereabouts - and were driving east on 202 just before Tempe Town Lake. Way out in front of us and just to the right of 202 was another, unremarkable incoming flight. Then suddenly high up in the windshield what appeared to be a small bright green ball of light shot very fast indeed toward the flight (slightly to its left - or to the north of its flight path). It was probably a couple of thousand feet above the in-coming flight. At least it seemed to be about that high.

It was traveling as fast as any tracer round I've seen - so it seemed - but it had no arcing trajectory. It flew straight eastward past or over the in-coming flight and in about two seconds with a very slight upward curve to its track had vanished completely. The green was what I'd call a Christmas ornament green. It was bluer than the green you see on traffic signals.

I have no idea what the diameter of the green ball was. If it was a couple of thousand feet above the incoming flight, the ball might have been 4 or 5 feet in diameter but there is really no reliable way to estimate its size with any probability of accuracy because our sense that it was above the in-coming flight might have been wrong.

As we were in the car, there was no sound we could here. My wife and I saw it clearly but our daughter and her boyfriend in the back seat didn't see anything.

Hope this data point helps. My wife and I are both observant, educated professionals and by now know very well when we see something that doesn't quite "fit" the expected picture of the world. The green ball of light clearly falls into the category of "what the hell was that?"