Fireball report

Reports Report 117e (Event 117-2014)

Observer
Name	Fred P
Experience Level	3/5
Remarks	-

Location
Address	Petitcodiac, NB (CA)
Latitude	45° 50' 16.66'' N (45.837961°)
Longitude	65° 17' 2.76'' W (-65.284101°)
Elevation	65.611488m

Time and Duration
Local Date & Time	2014-01-12 20:15 AST
UT Date & Time	2014-01-13 00:15 UT
Duration	≈7.5s

Direction
Moving direction	From left to right
Descent Angle	90°

Moving
Facing azimuth	38.12°
First azimuth	41.38°
First elevation	-
Last azimuth	39.65°
Last elevation	10°

Brightness and color
Stellar Magnitude	-
Color	Light Blue

Concurrent Sound
Observation	No
Remarks	-

Delayed Sound
Observation	No
Remarks	-

Persistent train
Observation	No
Duration	-
Length	-
Remarks	-

Terminal flash
Observation	Yes
Remarks	The sky had high cloud Formation and had thickness. The clouds were not solid, were broken with openings.Did not see any balls streak across the sky because of the clouds, Could see the sky was lite up beyond the clouds in the openings from the glow of the moon. The first outburst I saw the clouds lite up in a yellowish white glow which I thought was due to a lightning flash except there was no lightning bolt. My wife and daughter were with me in the car.I had enough time to ask my wife if she had seen the sky light up. Just then the sky lite up a second time, then a third time. The whole affair lasted about 10 seconds. Then what might have been a couple of seconds later was a huge round glow of bluish white light occur at the line of the horizon a couple of degrees to the left of my line of sight on the road, many mile ahead of me. There were no sparks which might have indicate impact, although the glow appeared to expand. Again I did not see the any streak of lite immediately before seeing the huge glow outburst. If I hold an American quarter about 2 feet in front of me, the burst of light was that size at probably 20 to 30 miles away in the distance. Driving down the highway, I had time to reflect on what I saw and came to the conclusion that the likely reason why the sky lite up three times could have been due to whatever was traveling through the sky travelling went through thick dense cloud which would have cut off the glow, then when the object exited into a clearing the sky would light up again. I called my brother in law to discuss what I saw. He did ask if I saw a fire ball streak across the sky to which I replied no due to the partial cloud cover. After a little chit chat he said that he would check out newschasers.com. He called back some 10 minutes or so later to saw that people were speaking of a transformer on fire in the Petitcodiac, which did not make sense because the clouds lite up from beyond. Lite did not bounce off of the clouds and travel back towards us. Then he mentioned someone had reported the seeing the sky light up in Saint John NB, which is situated some 60 to 70 kilometers behind us in a westward direction.

Terminal flash

Observation

Yes

Remarks

The sky had high cloud Formation and had thickness. The clouds were not solid, were broken with openings.Did not see any balls streak across the sky because of the clouds, Could see the sky was lite up beyond the clouds in the openings from the glow of the moon. The first outburst I saw the clouds lite up in a yellowish white glow which I thought was due to a lightning flash except there was no lightning bolt. My wife and daughter were with me in the car.I had enough time to ask my wife if she had seen the sky light up. Just then the sky lite up a second time, then a third time. The whole affair lasted about 10 seconds. Then what might have been a couple of seconds later was a huge round glow of bluish white light occur at the line of the horizon a couple of degrees to the left of my line of sight on the road, many mile ahead of me. There were no sparks which might have indicate impact, although the glow appeared to expand. Again I did not see the any streak of lite immediately before seeing the huge glow outburst. If I hold an American quarter about 2 feet in front of me, the burst of light was that size at probably 20 to 30 miles away in the distance. Driving down the highway, I had time to reflect on what I saw and came to the conclusion that the likely reason why the sky lite up three times could have been due to whatever was traveling through the sky travelling went through thick dense cloud which would have cut off the glow, then when the object exited into a clearing the sky would light up again. I called my brother in law to discuss what I saw. He did ask if I saw a fire ball streak across the sky to which I replied no due to the partial cloud cover. After a little chit chat he said that he would check out newschasers.com. He called back some 10 minutes or so later to saw that people were speaking of a transformer on fire in the Petitcodiac, which did not make sense because the clouds lite up from beyond. Lite did not bounce off of the clouds and travel back towards us. Then he mentioned someone had reported the seeing the sky light up in Saint John NB, which is situated some 60 to 70 kilometers behind us in a westward direction.

Fragmentation
Observation	No
Remarks	-