Seen as far east as Pendleton; did you see it too? Let us know, post below
By Barney Lerten, KTVZ.COM
More reports flowed into KTVZ.COM Friday from Oregonians in the Portland area and on the High Desert saw a bright fireball flash across the northern sky Thursday evening, a dramatic sight similar to several other widely viewed fireballs sighted across the Northwest over the past year or so.
All of the sightings occurred around 5:05 p.m., and while no Central Oregon sheriff's agencies reported getting any calls about the phenomenon, it's quite likely many others saw it happen, at a time of day many workers and others are on the move.
Rod Wells said he had just pulled out of the Hooker Creek rental yard in La Pine and was heading north on Highway 97 " and I just went, ‘Wow, look at that!'" he recalled, describing it as green with some orange in the tail.
South of Redmond, near the site of the old Brand Restaurant, Juanita Martin said she, too, was heading home on Highway 97 "when I saw it directly in front of me, out my windshield."
"It was going east to west, disappearing just above about rooftop height," she told KTVZ.COM by e-mail. "It had a greenish glow about it. For just a second, I wondered if it was a firework gone bad streaking across the sky - it was really big and bright."
"I called my daughter, who was on Deschutes Market Road, heading toward Redmond, and she saw it too - pretty cool!" Martin wrote.
Another observer, "Andrew," posted a note on KTVZ.COM, saying he saw the meteor driving home from Wilsonville to Lake Oswego, south of Portland.
"It was a green streak coming down to the east," he said. "It was not yet fully dark, so it was very bright."
One common thing about such fireball sightings is that it can be next to impossible to determine how large or far away the objects really are.
"Hell, it could have been a piece of space junk," Wells said, adding, "I've seen meteorites before."
A couple of years ago, Wells said he and his wife saw a meteorite "go down on the south side of Mount Bachelor. We saw it light up Mount Bachelor, which was behind it. Way cool."
On Friday, several sightings were posted in comments on KTVZ.COM, including a Crooked River Ranch resident and a woman heading home from work in Pendleton and heading west.
"I also just thought it was a shooting star," "Yolanda" wrote, as others had. "I hope my wish still comes true."
Meteorite expert Dick Pugh told KTVZ.COM Thursday night he'd received six calls about the new sighting, three on each side of the mountains.
"One northwest of Portland said it was headed for China Hat," Pugh said. "There's no evidence of sonic booms or sound effects." We're past the Leonid meteor shower, he said, adding, "This is a 'stray,' it appears."
The colors seen as reported were "green and orange and yellow and blue." Based on what he's heard, the object may have been about "the size of a marble or golf ball."
Last Feb. 9, many thousands of people saw a meteor streaking across the earl-morning sky, even bursting into pieces, across a wide area of the west.
Scientists, including Pugh and colleague Alex Ruzicka at Portland State University's Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory (http://meteorites.pdx.edu/) sifted through dozens of phone calls and e-mails from observers to try to determine if the February fireball produced any meteorites (pieces that hit the ground) and if so, where they might be found.
They said it appeared the meteor probably did produce meteorites northeast of Pendleton. But after spending the summer in the La Grande and Enterprise area, Pugh said that with the amount of basalt there, "You could drop a black rock from 5,000 feet up and never find it."
Actually, Pugh said, there was another major fireball seen over the Seattle area on Thanksgiving, photographed "going due south" toward the unfortunately clouded-over Willamette Valley.
Astronomer Lynn Carroll of the Sunriver Nature Center said he didn't see Thursday evening's fireball, but one Saturday night in late August was among hundreds in the area and thousands around the Northwest who saw a huge fireball that lit up the sky. "It was one of the brightest I've ever seen - just spectacular," he said.
Another, similar sighting occurred last Christmas Eve and was seen by numerous residents across Central Oregon, Northern California and Nevada. Another one occurred on March 15, 2005, seen across the Northwest. Experts said the meteor, likely about the size of a basketball, likely landed in the Pacific Ocean.
Finding a meteorite on the ground is a rare thing indeed. But late last month, scientists said they had found remains of a meteor that lit up the sky before falling to Earth in western Canada. The fragments were found near the Battle River, along the rural Alberta-Saskatchewan border.
