"Everyone Was Ringing Up Saying Spaceships Were Crashing"

Meteor shower startles Riverina residents

ABC Riverina NSW
11-10-05

     Some Riverina residents, in southern New South Wales, feared they had witnessed a plane crash early last night when they saw an apparent meteor shower.

     The fire brigade received a number of calls from people in inland New South Wales who thought a plane was coming down.

     One listener to ABC Riverina this morning, Allan, described the incident.

     "Oh, there was a big ball of flame falling out of the sky ... it would have been about 6.30pm [AEDT] and would've been north, north-east of where we were. It didn't last very long, you had to be quick to see it," he said.

     Griffith resident Susan says the meteor was so bright she and her family were sure a plane was falling out of the sky.

     "It really frightened us because the direction it was in and the place that it was directly over our neighbour's property and he has an ultralight and we thought, 'my god, he's fallen out of the sky'," she said.

     Vince Ford from the Mount Stromlo Observatory says the current meteor activity is creating a lot of talk around the world.

     "At the moment we've got a meteor shower running and it's the one that produces the brightest meteors through the year usually," he said.

     "In fact, when it started running a week ago, Germany went UFO mad, everyone was ringing up saying spaceships were crashing. Well, they were partly right, it is rubbish from space, in this case it's little chunks left over from the passage of ... a comet ... back in the 1800s.

More . . .

Home