[meteorite-list] Sonic Boom Over England?

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Dec 24 19:14:48 2005
Message-ID: <200512242348.jBONmYe26939_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.whitbytoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=983&ArticleID=1287178

Mystery of Monday's big bang

MYSTERY still surrounds the huge bang which rattled windows across
Whitby and the Esk Valley on Monday afternoon.

Whitby Today (United Kingdom)
December 15, 2005

The boom could be heard from Whitby to Goathland and Glaisdale at around
3.05pm.

Ken Hirst of Ridge Lane, Briggswath said: "There was a loud bang coupled
with a shaking of the house.

"It rattled all the doors and the windows and everything. It seemed to
come from the valley."

Annabel Dore of Briggswath said: "We had neighbours leaning out of the
windows saying what was that?

"My immediate reaction was had there been an explosion in Middlesbrough."
Whitby police and fire brigade confirmed nothing had exploded and said
they assumed the bang was a sonic boom.

A spokesman for RAF Fylingdales said they did not hear the bang and as
far as he was aware it was nothing to do with them.

Mark Dawson of Whitby and District Astronomical Society said: "It has
either been a sonic boom from an aircraft or it could have been a bolide
breaking up in the air."

Bolides are large meteors which are relatively common and can be heard
two to three times a year.

"We have had one or two around Whitby," he said.

"I don't know why but Whitby seems to be quite favoured."

He said it could also have been debris from Geminids, which are meteor
showers which occur annually between 6-19 December - reaching their peak
on 13 December.

"It would have had to have been football-sized to cause a bang like
that," he said.

A British Geological Survey Global Seismology Unit spokesman said it had
not recorded any unusual activity in the area.

He said this would suggest it was not a mine collapsing or an earthquake
and was more likely to have been a sonic boom.

But it looks like no-one will ever know for sure just what caused the bang.
Mr Dawson said: "Unless there are reports from anybody seeing anything
fragment we are probably not going to find out."
Received on Sat 24 Dec 2005 06:48:33 PM PST