Last night (Tuesday) at about 9:00pm residents here on AC saw a large ball of fire streaking across the sky on the lagoon side of the island. Descriptions of the fireball are identical to the phenonemom observed in Pensylvania and New York states on Monday night. The fireball had a long, brightly lit tail and reminded some observers I spoke to of a streaking jet on fire.

A few seconds after the fireball disappeared over the North horizon a large boom shook the island. I myself didn't see the fireball, but the boom shook the building I was working in.

The following is a news report from July 23rd about the sighting in North America of the similar incident:

"A large and brilliant flash of moving light accompanied by a trail of smoke and seen high in the sky across a wide swath of eastern North America on Monday evening, July 23, was most likely an asteroid that broke apart as it crashed through Earth's atmosphere, scientists say.

The early evening fireball was seen as far north as Toronto and as far south as southern Virginia. Scientists at the American Meteor Society, who monitor such events, now suspect the event was centered in the skies above Pennsylvania.

Law enforcement offices across the East were flooded with calls around 6:18 p.m. EDT Monday by people who reported seeing a multicolored fireball that lasted a second or more. Some witnesses also heard a sonic boom associated with the flash. Pilots over Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland reported the spectacle to federal aviation officials.

An analysis of accounts indicates that the fireball moved from East to West. It was sighted from New York City to western Pennsylvania. It is not yet clear if all witness saw the same object or if there might have been multiple fireballs created when an original rock broke apart.

Though it was broad daylight, the fireball was described variously as being as bright as the full Moon or even the setting Sun. Others said it like an airplane on fire. And pick your color: Some saw orange and yellow. Others described it more patriotically as a white object with a red tail and blue flashes."

JanePA!!!! Did you see it??????? After my last email I sent you about the stars, that would be SO WAY COOL if you saw it. Let me know...
Deb

I think it was the space shuttle landing at Cape Canaveral.

Papashine,

Perhaps this is related to the "Aliens in AC" postings of last fall? Musta got your computer fixed, huh?

CC

It was the shuttle.
It landed in Florida 30 minutes later.
Musta looked better form thre end.

FROM CH5TV:
Commotion in Belize skies turns out to be
shuttle

It was an event that lit up switchboards at police
stations and media houses all over the country.
Sometime after 9:00 Tuesday night, Belizeans
witnessed a rapidly moving object streaking across the
sky followed by a plume of white smoke and
accompanied by what sounded like a massive thunder
clap. Explanations for the UFO ranged from a meteor
shower to alien invasion, but a quick look at CNN
confirmed that the phenomenon was simply the
re-entry into the earth's atmosphere of the space
shuttle Atlantis prior to its successful landing at Cape
Canaveral, Florida.

Very possibly the space shuttle after all. The re-entry trajectory does take it over C. America when it lands at Kennedy.

The sound shook the building i work in's windows. Space shuttles re-enter at supersonic speeds at least until the atmosphere slows them down.

I've had several people tell me they felt the impact through their feet.

Description wise, It sounds very similar to what people say when meteors are sighted. And we are in the middle of the Perseid meteor shower.
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~stahr/info/perseid_faq.html

Of course its not aliens...but it sure is turning out to be an Unidentified Flying Object!


[This message has been edited by tiny mayan (edited 07-26-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited 07-26-2001).]

Where is Fox Mulder when you need him?

This was on Yahoo! News:

PUERTO BARRIOS, Guatemala (AP) - Emergency switchboards were jammed by dozens of callers reporting strange lights in the sky as the space shuttle Atlantis re-entered the atmosphere before landing in Cape Canaveral, Fla., police said.

It was only the 18th space shuttle touchdown in darkness in 20 years. Infrared cameras showed the incoming spaceship Wednesday as a ghostly white blur. Many people called in to report the sound of an explosion.

``It caused bursts of lights and a boom that alarmed people,'' said Capt. Mario Velez, head of military intelligence at the Guatemalan Navy base in Puerto Barrios. ``They could have given us some advance notice.''

In neighboring El Salvador (news - web sites), officials also received multiple reports of an explosion. A search turned up nothing unusual.

The search was much wider in Mexico's southern state of Quintana Roo.

There, near the state capital of Chetumal, dozens of soldiers and sailors were sent out in motor boats to isolated stretches of mangrove swamps to search for the wreckage of ``an aircraft'' that residents said had burst into flames and crashed.

Search teams found nothing.

We were there Tues night driving by Jerry's Crab Shack and saw a crowd of people pointing at the sky so we stopped to check it out. What an incredible sight.