Here are some follow up articles and images, I'm also going to try and post video as well. Let me know what you think.
Link To Video
Mysterious fireball lights up western Canadian sky
CTV Edmonton security cameras caught the meteor approach and then create a massive flash in the skyline on Thursday evening, Nov. 20, 2008.
CTV Edmonton security cameras caught the meteor approach and then create a massive flash in the skyline on Thursday evening, Nov. 20, 2008.
Amateur astronomer Alister Ling, based in southwest Edmonton, captured a bright flash in the sky from a camera that constantly monitors the sky.
Amateur astronomer Alister Ling, based in southwest Edmonton, captured a bright flash in the sky from a camera that constantly monitors the sky.
A mysterious fireball has lit up the sky in western Canada and may have been a meteorite which slammed into central Alberta, according to local reports.
While it's still unknown what caused the bright light, residents from northern Saskatchewan to southern Alberta have reported seeing it, the RCMP said.
MyNews user Dan Charrois, who lives about 50 kilometres north of Edmonton, said security cameras set up at his home managed to capture some grainy footage showing a big flare in the night sky.
"It happened so fast I don't think anyone would have had the reaction time to get it," he told CTV.ca, adding that his computer software business has written programs which track meteors.
Though Charrois didn't see the fireball himself, he decided to check the security tapes after his friends and neighbours called him to find out where the light may have came from.
"I only had to rewind a couple of minutes and it was there," he said, noting the security time stamped the flash at 5:26 p.m. local time.
"You kind of see a flash, which lasts about two seconds or so," he said.
CTV Calgary has also received several calls about the fireball, and one witness said it was so bright that it was visible from the Deerfoot freeway in the city's core.
Other witnesses in Lloydminster, located on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan, said the light was so strong that it appeared to be daylight when it passed over the area.
And locals at the Red Pheasant First Nation, 100 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, said the walls of their band office shook when the fireball streaked overhead.
The fireball may have crashed into the ground about 200 kilometres south of Calgary, according to witness Rob Westland.
Westland told CTV Calgary that he was driving with his son when the pair spotted a massive light.
The Brooks, Alta., resident said that the fireball was about the size of a house and that it may slammed into the ground with a muffled boom.
Meanwhile, Calgary-based astronomer Alan Dyer said that it's too soon to speculate on what caused the light.
Dyer, who works at the Telus World of Science, added that it will take time for experts to work through videos and photos to find out what exactly occurred.
This is pretty amazing stuff there was another one that was seen over Quebec about a month or so ago but nothing was found this one sounds like it's big enough that they will find pieces of it. I also hope to have some images that I will post as they become available.
Possible meteor lights up the skies in northern Alberta
EDMONTON — A possible meteor lit up both the sky and the telephone lines in Western Canada on Thursday evening.
Around 5:30 p.m., a huge flash of light briefly turned the dark skies into daylight. Reports of sightings of the light and possibly a fireball came from Edmonton to Regina to Swan River, Man. People got so excited that RCMP in Lloydminster, on the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary, issued a news release asking people to stop calling them.
The excitement quickly spread to the scientific community, which was agog with the possibility the fireball might have dropped meteorites to the ground.
"Wow. That's impressive," said Chris Herd, associate professor of Earth and Atmospheric sciences at the University of Alberta, when told of the wide geographical swath of reports.
"To see something from that far away, that's pretty substantial. The potential is that it's big. That tells you that the meteoroid is probably a good size. There's a pretty high chance that it dropped meteorites."
He said that pinpointing the location of any meteorites depends on two factors - people calling in to say they've found such space rocks, and people calling to report how far afield the fireball was spotted.
"The more reports that you have into that fireball-reporting ... the more data you have and then people can reduce that data and try and pinpoint where it may have landed."
He said typically, meteorites fall within a radius of a few kilometres.
The source of the meteor can only be determined once the meteorites are examined, said Heard, who is also curator of a collection of meteorites at the Edmonton university.
"The vast majority of the meteorites that we have, we're fairly certain, come from the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter."
Marcel Gobeil was on his acreage west of Beaumont, Alta., waiting for his wife to come home at the time.
"I just happened to look outside facing east," he said. "All of a sudden I saw this big flash coming down and I thought somebody was playing tricks on me, like fireworks behind the house or something.
"Just before that I heard a boom. I didn't know if it was a tree against the house. It was green and blue and it was coming down pretty fast."
Gobeil said the light display eventually turned orange, yellow and red and lasted 10 seconds.
"I was waiting for it to explode," he said. "It looked similar to when we watch (news reports) in Afghanistan. When I didn't see that, I said, 'well, that's something from outer space.' I'm sure it landed way out in Winnipeg or something."
Gobeil said he only wished he'd gotten a picture of the other-worldly event.
"It's exciting - both scary and really nice."
