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Remarks |
Meteor/space debris sighting, Friday September 21st, 2012 We were on holiday in the Lake District and were staying in a cottage located about 10miles SE of Windermere. We had just returned from a pub meal – the time was about 11pm. I had gone into the bedroom and noticed what looked at first like a brightly lit aircraft. It was heading towards the cottage, travelling from East to West and appeared to be trailing about 3 or bright lights. As it approached it seemed to be more like a meteor with ‘sparks’ coming off. As it passed overhead, I ran out of the room and shouted to my wife and friend to join me at the cottage door. We were all able to see the ‘meteor’, with a definite ‘tail’ of bright lights. The main body appeared to break up as it disappeared behind some trees, still heading towards the West. We discussed what we had seen and thought it must be a meteor, although the object had, unlike most meteors, been seen continuously for at least 20 seconds – long enough for me to run from the bedroom to the cottage door. The speed and apparent altitude was very much like an aircraft but the sky was very clear (we had seen the milky way clearly when walking back from dinner) and the object could have been much higher. The tail initially appeared to be a string of separate lights but as it passed overhead (actually about 20 degrees from zenith) the tail appeared more continuous. The main body of the object initially appeared to be a single entity but broke up as it disappeared. Its course was definitely from East to West. |
