This was by far the craziest, largest meteor any of us had ever seen.....and first with a sonic boom! Very cool and memorable. Kinda scary even. We figure its one in a lifetime. We all expected to read about it in the paper and news when we got back to town 2 days later. At the time we did not have internet access nor cell phone service so we had to wait for news on it.
We are assuming it was a meteor. Is there any chance it could have been a supersonic missle? .........or space debrie re-entering the atmosphere? How big does a meteor need to be to create a sonic boom? Since all meteors are travelling supersonic why don't they all have a sonic boom associated with them?
Location
Address
Creston, WA
Latitude
47° 55' 19.51'' N (47.922087°)
Longitude
118° 36' 24.87'' W (-118.606907°)
Elevation
-
Time and Duration
Local Date & Time
2012-08-07 22:15 PDT
UT Date & Time
2012-08-08 05:15 UT
Duration
≈3.5s
Direction
Moving direction
From up left to down right
Descent Angle
135°
Moving
Facing azimuth
343.30083°
First azimuth
168.88694°
First elevation
90°
Last azimuth
345.96382°
Last elevation
36°
Brightness and color
Stellar Magnitude
-13
Color
white, green
Concurrent Sound
Observation
No
Remarks
-
Delayed Sound
Observation
Yes
Remarks
Sounded just like the sonic booms we used to hear as a kid from military aircraft. At first I thought it was a large explosion at one of the small towns 10 miles away. But then someone said sometimes large meteors have sonic booms. It was delayed 30-60 seconds after the fireball.
Persistent train
Observation
Yes
Duration
-1s
Length
-1°
Remarks
Smoke trail apparently. We can only assume since it was dar. However the stars behind the path of the fireball were obscured.
Terminal flash
Observation
Yes
Remarks
I was lying in my tent looking straight up thru the open screen as it passed straight over us. I initially thought it was a flare. I am slightly near sighted and did not have my glasses on at the time. However it lit up the tent and was extremely bright and wide....like the distress flare guns you see in movies.It seems to be moving slow like a flare gun as well. I watched to see if it would hit the cliffs on the north side of the lake (we were on the beach); however it burned out before hitting the ground. It appearded to break up prior to dissappearing. All 5 college age kids came running over yelling at the parents. It woke up 2 parents that were already asleep. The kids could better describe the fragmentation details and colors. I saw mostly white...maybe reddish white. They said they saw lots of green....maybe as it fragmented.
