Gossip

Apparently a meteor hit near Bethel, and everyone there heard/felt a massive "boom." Or that's the gossip that's making its way around. Others are saying the police were exploding things at the dump.

Who wants to bet on the veracity of these claims?

More later.

EDIT: Got the following in an e-mail. It is the text of a KYUK radio story:

Some residents near Bethel heard what sounded like an explosion early this morning. Many thought it was thunder or a man-made sonic boom. . .As Angela Denning-Barnes from KYUK in Bethel reports, it actually fell from the sky. . .
ADB/SMI midday Monday, September 11, 2006


Bethel police dispatcher, Melanie Barniskis was working the night shift and had stepped out to the deck for a short break at about 5 a.m.. . .The sky was clear and the moon was out, when something caught her eye. . .
CUT 1: 33 secs. “When I looked at it, I saw a huge, white, glowing ball of light, traveling extremely fast, traveling from West to East. And a long, golden, sparkling tail, which covered nearly three-quarters of the sky behind it. As it passed overhead, it began to fall. As it got almost level with my line of vision, the white glowing head seemed to disintegrate, and there was a huge shower of what looked to be sparks or flare-outs, and after that I couldn’t see anymore.”

Barniskis presumed it was a meteor that had broken up in mid-air. She heard a hissing noise when it went overhead, but she didn’t hear a sonic boom like some other people. Back inside the police station, she received several reports from people who had heard something loud, and others who actually felt tremors in Bethel.

Meanwhile, fifteen miles Northeast of Bethel, tribal police officer, Theodore Charles was also taking down reports of a loud explosion that woke people up and shook their houses in the village. . . .A few people reported seeing a red flaring thing that exploded. . .
CUT 2: 15 secs. “the impact was like a loud explosion. And it pretty much, ah, like I said it shook up the West side of town; shook a lot of houses down here.”

Charles says Kwethluk residents didn’t know what had made the ruckus, but the fact that it was the 5 year anniversary of terrorist activity did not escape them . . .
CUT 3: 6 secs. “Well, apparently today is 9-11, and they thought that something else was going on.”

Hans Nielson with the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks says meteors are very localized and usually can’t be seen more than 200 miles away. He says the description of this incident, and the fact that it was seen and heard, makes it possible that it was NOT a meteor, but rather a larger piece of space debris from a satellite, spacecraft, or rocket.

None the less, it was a lifetime dream come true for Barniskis. . . .
CUT 4: “I’ve been a star gazer most of my life, and I’ve gone out to look for meteor showers down in the Lower 48, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

In Bethel, I’m Angela Denning-Barnes