Tok residents abuzz over object in sky
Published Friday, January 2, 2009
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Stumble It!FAIRBANKS — Was it a meteor falling from space?
Officials think that might be what residents saw shooting through the Alaska sky near Tok on Monday afternoon.
A tremendous explosion, like a sonic boom, drew some people outside, where they watched irregular contrails scribe a path in a clear sky.
At her home four miles west of Tok, Kathy Olding was loading a large sled with firewood to haul to her house when she was startled by an explosion. Peering out from the tarp-covered wood pile, she saw even her imperturbable Chesapeake Bay retriever, Journey, was on edge, ears cocked.
“I could kind of hear it still rumbling, like thunder,” she recalled. “I thought, what in the world?”
Turning her eyes to the sky, Olding saw the oddest contrail.
“It was just like somebody took a pen and made a white cloud that went up and down and up and down and squiggley,” she said, describing the pattern.
Others called 911.
Alaska State Troopers dispatcher Diane Kendall fielded several calls starting about 3:30 p.m. Most reported a loud explosion.
One caller, an adult, told Kendall an 11-year-old witnessed the entire spectacle outside.
“He said it was like a big fireball that exploded, with smoke everywhere,” Kendall relayed. “The kid said, ‘I think it was a meteor,’ and I went, right. The Martians have landed. But then I got three other calls, boom, boom, boom. I was pretty shocked.”
People reported hearing and feeling an explosion in the air, but no one called in about debris falling from the sky, said Sgt. Freddie Wells, the state trooper on duty at the time.
Responding to the reports, he went out and caught a glimpse as well.
“It seemed to appear like smoke, or a dust cloud,” he said.
Fearing some sort of airplane disaster, Wells had his dispatcher call the Federal Aviation Administration in Fairbanks.
“The FAA did confirm that it was a meteor,” Wells said.
Kendall called the FAA in Fairbanks. Kendall confirmed she was told that the flying object was a meteor, and that others reported seeing a similar phenomenon from the Parks Highway.
But the FAA has no official information on a meteor, said Claudia Hoversten, acting administrator for the Alaskan region.
However, inquiries and calls concerning unidentified flying objects are not all that unusual, she said. The FAA refers many callers to the National UFO Reporting Center near Seattle, she added.
John Chappelow is a post-doctorate researcher at the Arctic Super-Computing Center at University of Alaska Fairbanks. He said the object could have been a meteor, but the sonic boom-type sound is atypical.
“That’s a very rare event,” he noted. “It’s hard to say. It could have been a sonic boom. I wouldn’t rule out a meteor.”
He also noted that bright meteors and fireballs are not too unusual to see. Sounds, however, would be delayed reaching people’s ears, maybe by as long as 30 seconds. Objects from space have to be quite large in order to cause sounds such as people around Tok described, a rare event but not unknown. A meteor generating a sonic boom-type noise would have been at least the size of a basketball, he suggested.
Others in Tok also heard the blast. Several of Olding’s friends, including one person in Chicken, compared stories.
Some residents would like an official word on what they witnessed. Rumors abounded for a few days, ranging from the results of a secret military test gone haywire to a satellite explosion or even visitors from space.
“This is highly unusual for many, many Tokites to have heard this explosion,” Olding wrote in an e-mail. “Does ANYONE know what it was? We are all dying to know.”
News that the mysterious incident was likely a meteor was somewhat reassuring, laying to rest Martian theories.
“We’re looking for UFOs around here,” Sgt. Wells joked.
Chappelow said nearly all meteors that leave visible trails in the atmosphere are no bigger than a BB, and most are as tiny as a grain of sand. The brightness comes from the speed meteors travel into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Community Discussion
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Wow. I would have loved to have seen this! Last week we were driving near Ivory Jack's about 9:00 PM and saw a very bright meteor that trailed across the sky for easily 5 seconds. It was the best meteor sighting I have ever experienced. Alaska misses the best meteor showers in August because of the daylight, so these kinds of sightings have to make up for that. Just wow.
Thank God it was a meteor.
I'd hate to see Fairbanker's lynching Martians because they thought they were spying on their wife from above.
High level contrails and sonic booms? Hello, US Air Force? What are you guys testing?
Anyone recall what the Air Force did in the Interior- ten years ago?
We had that long rumbling boom for about 30 seconds. The Aurora plane? The Air Force was pretty smart- they pulled that little stunt on a cloudy night so we couldn't see the air/space craft.
Of course the Air Force denied any involvement. But that is quite typical with classified military programs.
Oh the stories some of us could tell...
Man! Glow I'm with you I wished I'd seen that also! Living out here by Ivory Jacks we see quite a few things sailing through the sky. It is always cool to see.
Was it the Air Force? Maybe, doubtful but maybe.
T_B and halt... tell more!
rogerx--or those macho guys who "pack" point their handguns towards the bright light and shoot it out of the sky thinking they were saving us all from terrorists.
T_B and halt need to check the tinfoil hats for holes.
I saw the object 10+ years ago and it was clearly a meteor. Sorry, nothing as sinister as "Aurora".
And glow, we do get to see the best shower, the Leonids, in November.
Keep a close eye out... If it's not too cold the Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in the early morning hours of January 3. Look just off the last star in the handle of the Big Dipper. Hourly rates of 80-100 meteors are possible. Observers at high latitudes like us enjoy a favorable viewing opportunity, weather permitting
http://www.spaceweather.com/meteors/quad...
Klaatu Verata Nikto...
(tell that to the giant space-robot when he comes)
Unless of course this IS a "government operation", then I guess...well...it's a government operation, was anybody hurt?
Free fireworks
"If it's not too cold the Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in the early morning hours of January 3"
Just in time to celebrate statehood, eh?
IRUR, since you seem to be in the celestial know... what planet is that so bright underneath our crescent moon these last three nights?
Well, I guess that if aliens did need to land some where, there'd be few places as complete as Tok Jct. to offer a small but varied cross-section of all that North American humanoids have to offer.
No doubt, someone would demand to see their birth certificates in order to prove that they're 'Mercans, while others would probably offer to buy them a beer or a cup of coffee, or perhaps even roll them a joint..
Sheesh, Dirk, aliens could land in Ester and get a more varied cross-section of humanoids. We got big Alaskan bearded dudes, earth mothers, radical right Repubs, lesbian moms, intellectual environmentalists, christian supremacists, artists, writers, ex-psychiatric consumers, commies, greenies, libbies, anarchists, even your Palinistas. Why would an alien want to land in Tok when we got the Golden Eagle with free parking?
Good point. Probably why I never pursued a career as a tour guide...
Surely the Tokites will let the Aliens know they can park inside a garage where it is 25 below zero for only $20 a night.
Maybe their interest was peaked by Fast Eddy's world-renowned breakfasts??
Or those blinking Coast Guard communications towers by the Tok River crossing are flashing out some unintended message in morse code??
Or their GPS units are now made in China as well??
Or they're not nearly as sophisticated as we thought, and prefer 70s rock and country music to museums and the orchestra??
Maybe we'll find out, and maybe we won't...
Ooooohhhhhh.. I just hate the tension that takes over before a big surprise!!
Probably the Air Force. If they're meteorites, I hope they land far away.
Dirk, who among sophisticated aliens would not prefer country to orchestra music? Or maybe they are attracted to old time fiddle music and just made a wrong turn there at Tok, meaning, instead, to land Beyond Ester, out here in the woods, where the women are strong, and the men are skinny and intense, and the kids are all homeschooled and own their own snowmachines.
What part of Ester do you live near?? Only half of your description sounds local to me..
Intense, perhaps.. Skinny?? Not since the early to mid-80's and maybe a brief stint in the mid-90s..
Granted, here 'Beyond Ester,' in my local 'hood, I know of some strong women, but while that's attracted me in the past, those stringy-looking little green guys, well... I'd presumed that they'd be intimidated by such brusque amazons as we have 'round these parts.
I had considered that they were simply unable to afford the fuel at Border City, and decided to abandon the vehicle, hitch-hiking west out of Tok instead. But if they'd have asked me about that in advance, I'd have told them that it was a pretty bad idea. Even back in the hey-day of hitch-hiking up here, I have stories of being stuck in Tok for three days or more at a time, leaving beer on the back-pack with a sign offering 'free beer,' and ending up just drinking the beer.. I even wrote limericks about it..
nope, if that's what they did, then they're potentially in for a long spell along-side a desolate highway.. poor 'lil fellers, anyway...
Glow, that bright planet would be Venus.
Glow, the planet you saw is Venus.
Maybe it was Uranus.
Every morning, when Alaskans wake up, one of the first things they do, is look outside to see if there are any Martians hanging around. And if there are, you gotta go up to them and ask, "What are you doing here?" and if they can't give you a good reason, it's our responsibility to say, you know, "Shoo! Get back up there!" because, you know, after all... I can see Mars from my house!
Ever wonder what land in Alaska we don't see. Lots of places out there no one ever has set foot on.
PahoaSean....put the political crap down and slowly back away...the rhetoric is cutting off oxigen to your brain.
If it's really them, I want one of their license plates for my collection.
"Space; The Final Frontier"
I figure that it'll go well right next to my old Alaska ones..
Come to think of it, I want the whole 'frontier' collection..
NASA has a really great email newsletter that will give pretty good predictions of Auroral activity, meteor showers and whatever else might be happening in the space above your head. You can subscribe at http://www.spaceweather.com/
Great site for kids from 4 to 104, if you're 105 forget it.
Who has seen Dreamcatcher? Maybe Tok will be quarantined.
until, you see it yourself, you will always have doubts. we are not alone in this "vast universe".
Oh yeah, sure!! This all happens when I LEAVE ALASKA but not when I'm actually there..THAT SUCKS!! I'm happy for all of Tok. But, I'd still would have liked to have seen it.
Delanie
glow, susie77 and momof5 are correct. If you can get someplace that has a good vantage point of the setting sun, you may still be able to catch Jupiter and Mercury low on the western horizon just after sunset. I doubt that you'll still be able to see Mercury, as its position in the sky changes rapidly and it may no longer be visible. The Moon, Jupiter and Mercury were in close proximity last Monday. Then the Moon moved on to join Venus, the pair being closest on Wednesday.
Spaceweather.com is a good site. Try these two links:
Back "issue" of spaceweather.com from Monday the 29th:
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?...
Back "issue" from the 31st. Somebody from North Pole has a picture posted here:
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?...
Sean....obviously, I wasn't commenting on the article...just your lame comment :) If I had commented on the article, I would have said I wish I had seen it, too. Or if I had commented on the blog...I would have said it was nice to read something light hearted for a change...But no, I commented on your, and dare I say it again, lame post. Even if you were just trying to be funny, it was lame. Have a nice day.
Some people just don't know when it is time to have some fun and put the political crap away for awhile. So Riza do what I do when I see PSean name I ususally skip over it and go on.
Poor aliens, it won't take them long to be like so many residents of Tok have told me many times....I'm broke in Tok!!
wow! A gift from the heavens. be glade the droppings were small and not a cubic mile in size. we don't need any more mile wide craters. I'm happy for you to see the new sights.
Early 4Th. :-)
I better beef up my "Alien/UFO abduction" insurance!
Tranquility_Base, was that Aurora plane thing you mentioned in the summer of 1999?
I remember leaving Ft. WW one night after dropping a friend off, on a cloudy summer night, and having cars honking their horns on Gaffney Rd, and I just happened to look up and saw, what I thought was a Stealth flying north over head... very eery to see... didn't seem THAT high above me, but moved very slow and silent...
Worth a few bucks if you can find it! $$$$$$$$$$
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/so...
If you can't take a joke, don't move to Tok.
That's what they used to say back in the stuck hitchhiker days. I hitchhiked up here, and I heard Tok stories way before I got there.
The stories were true. It was tough gettin' out of Tok back then at least...!
Those rowdy aliens!
Weren't there predictions regarding meteor showers? That we were to expect a whole slew of them coming up on 2010? Hope none of them are any more serious than this one. That would be cool.
Nice to know that while they will gladly hold the press to get the freshest basketball scores from Chicago, we get a story about strange events in the sky in Tok witnessed by dozens of our fellow citizens on Friday when it happened on MONDAY! Plenty of time to sanitize the story.
I was driving across Nevada a couple years ago (about 2:30 a.m. - near the Extraterrestrial Highway - SR375) and I witnessed a series of meteors exploding low in the sky - however, one of the explosions was so large I could only describe it as looking like the explosion of the Challenger spacecraft. It was so large that I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The smaller explosions were spectacular too, but the big one was actually so big that I felt threatened. What a show! I hope you had some good viewing of the show up there in Alaska - it sounds VERY similar to my experience. G. McDonald, Santa Fe, NM
I too witnessed the meteor going over Tok on Monday shortly after 3pm, I was not registering what it was until after I heard the boom and felt the ground shake. I figured whatever it was, was travelling very fast as the boom and the shake occured several minutes after the firey streak went through the sky. All I could think of was, I hope it landed where no one was living. I am wondering when the planes will be out looking for the point of impact. If we heard the boom and felt the shake in Tok, there is no doubt a large crater somewhere out there. I agree with paperboy, why did this take so long to hit the news. I would rather read about this than the govenor's daughter who should be left alone. I find this much more interesting and anxiously await the end result of our fireball in the sky.
I imagine it took the author a while to get to talk to the witnesses and organize it into a story. At least the N-M still reports alot of local news! The TV channels have become useless at local news. I dcn't even bother watching Ch. 11 news anymore, its a homogenized, Clear Channel, waste of my time.
Oh, yeah, the story is about a possible meteor. Well, on that note, there is a brief meteor shower tonight, for anyone interested in freezing solid out in the dark. Best time to go look would be after midnight. It's called the Quadrantid meteor shower.
Burke, you get the award for the most original explanation. :-)
The meteor was probably 10's of KM up in the air, so it's sound should have been a minute or more after the visible meteor. My bet is that the sound was the sound of the shock wave the thing generated, not it impacting the ground. Actual ballistic impact with the ground is a VEEERY rare event. I highly doubt there is a crater out there.... MAYBE just some meteorite fragments that'll never be found.
I'm not sure why the dispatcher was so seemingly dismissive of the kid who saw this....cause he was a kid? Meteors as dramatic as this are relatively rare events but certainly are not non-existent. A bright fireball was seen in Bethel a couple of years ago, and one dropped meteorites on Tagish Lake in BC after overflying Alaska several years ago. So simply dismissing his report out of hand seems pretty cavalier, and in this case just plain wrong.
Its the CIA they were testing a new weapon in extreme cold environment!
Not a meteor, it was aliens. I know, I saw the movie "Cloverfield"
Corinne- Happy New Year!
George Bush & Dick Chaney at it again. We're just lucky their secret delivery of "alien contact codes" to Sarah Palin was discovered.
Where is the Beloved Leader? He'll make the changes to defend us from this new right wing conspiracy!
I'm sorry..... it may have been me. I have a new time machine I have been working on.... it started out as just a visual art project made out of an old Timex watch dispay case, but then turned more serious when I realized that my machine had an electrical plug in cord. I plugged it in - it has lights, sounds, everything!!!!!
It was my first attempt at using it - I honestly did not expect anything at all to happen. But something did. I did not get far.... and experienced a variety of technical difficulties... so after hitting the ground, (perhaps near Tok) thankfully without totally destroying me or my machine - we made our way back to Fairbanks by hitting the return button, thank goodness that got me home! I can not tell much more than this right now - as I was attempting to travel back in time - and believe I may still be stuck a few days or so in the past....
Fear not - it was not the martians....to cold for them this time of year on this part of our planet! They are in Florida.
wasnt this one of the predictions on the Art Bell show?
My wife and I witnessed this very bright light at 3:15 p.m. that day from the Elliott Highway next to Hilltop Truck Stop; 15 miles NW of Fairbanks. It was due east of us, moving very fast in a steep downward trajectory from southwest to northeast. It appeared to be closer to us than the Tok area. It only lasted for a moment; the light varied in intensity and it flared out before reaching the ground. We saw a wispy trail of gray-white smoke in its wake. No sound heard from inside our truck.
We thought it could be an aircraft on fire and crashing, so we called 911. Glad to hear others saw it too.
another Palin phenomenon, perhaps????????
corinne---
It took me 7 days hitchhiking out of Tok in '73. Met a fellow there that week that had given up and built a cabin.
I was atop Ester Dome on a petsitting assignment when this event happened. I was playing ball with the dogs and I saw the contrail but by the time I got into the house to use binoculars it had disappeared. It was just as described in the story. I didn't hear or feel anything. My first thought was that it was a rocket that failed and it was blown up by mission control. It was cool to see as long as no one was hurt, either human or alien.
I'll bet. I wish that I'd seen it, especially from one of the dome sights.
Attention Earthlings: As usual, your governmental nincompoops have shamelessly misled all but the most faithful extraterrestrial hosts. We landed in an undisclosed location near Tok yesterday around whatever human time you people go by in this neck of the universe. We know the rest of you Earthlings would be envious wherever we landed, but we chose Tok because its residents have a long history of trying to contact civilizations from other universes and figured that we could relate to them with minimal confusion. We were guided by past Tokites, HighGrade and Honkytonk, two true Space Pioneers who exemplify the spirit of Tok hospitality. Our spacecraft is currently being repaired in Chris Marshall's welding shop, and we will probably be taking him and his Dad on as passengers, then a quick stopover in Chicken to pick up Toad and Digger, and finally, we'll return home. Wonderful fuel, this "Tequila"...
mike5816, you totally crack me up.
Just moved to Tok. Didn't realize I am now a Tokite. And didn't realize we get UFOs in this part. Interesting...
Maybe 2012 isn't just internet talk anymore. A meteor was seen in Canada a couple of months ago that was also a rare event. It seems as if strange events are happening more & more now. Happy 2009!!!
God farted, big deal. Man was fashioned after the image of god. Who likes a fart joke better than Dad?
We called them snow frogs.
NO disrespect intended to any religious affiliations.
MrsS
I told my mom-in-law that it was just a sonic boom from some alien spacecraft that crashed up on Mt.Fairplay ... that's all. Nothing to be worried about ... too cold for them (the aliens) to do anything to us until spring. ROFL
MrsS: Whatever you do, don't pull God's finger. God's been having lower digestive tract problems ever since he stopped in Tijuana for a fish taco and a Tecate on his way back from Spring Break. He was trying to hitchhike home to Ester, where he blends in with all the other freaks. Unfortunately, he got stuck in Tok for seven days along the way. Put him in a hell of a mood. So he pulled the plug on the thermometer and started hurling fireballs at the poor town.
"Vengeance is Mine," sayeth the Lord.
TAC, you have most of the story right. G-d is indeed stuck in Tok, and he is pretty pissed right now. He is pissed because Gov Palin axed rural road infrasture out of the 2009 budget last week, and he can't get a ride because the roads are so fricking horrible. Talis Colberg interpreted the subpoena from G-d as a suggestion, nothing legally or divinely required, so G-d has been lobbing meteors towards Wasilla. He may have accidentally hit a church a couple of weeks back. If so, G-d says he's sorry that Palin thought it was about her. G-d says to tell Palin that it's not always about her, that sometimes a fricking meteor is just a fricking meteor. Oh, and G-d says to clear out the parking lot at the Golden Eagle in Ester, because once he gets home for the statehood party, he's buying for everyone there. He's such a good god, a magnaminous god. But boy, that fish taco set him in a foul mood.
oh. my. god. meteors here, AND canada? 2 strange events in 2 months?? geeze stock up your bomb shelters, people, the aztecs were right!
the most disturbing part of that article was the dog named "journey"
glow: Relax. The weather's getting to you.
I arrived via thumb as well. I was in and out of Tok in under thirty minutes. It was Delta Junction where I hit the skids. Fortunately it was early May. I had about three months of daylight to get my butt outa there.
I just went outside (-48 here) to look at the meteor shower and the whole sky is green, kind of waving around a little. Looks like its rising from the east over by Tok, I'm starting to wonder if maybe there's more to this than it seems.
Once I sat in a Delta Jct. tavern drinking beer with my thumb out and actually caught a ride to Valdez. Sad part was the trucker was drunker than I was. Even sadder, I was headed to Fairbanks. Was a fun ride though, 85 mph through the mountains at 3 AM in a howling blizzard. Wasn't in the Valdez Harbor bar 5 minutes and got shang-hied onto a long-liner headed for Hinchenbrook.
Happy New Year backatcha DenaliGuy!
Yo! Tok Alien!
HighGrade and Honkytonk're still around? I didn't think so. And Toad too! Been a while.
Well, Fairplay's as good a place as any to crash a spaceship.
glacierles-
You know how it goes. The old story was half of Tok ended up there 'cause they got stuck hitchhiking. I was out in four days, but a fellow hitchhiker split a room at the Tok Lodge at night. At least I had some money! It was pretty cold too.
DenaliGuy, my story kinda goes like that. I ended up doing something entirely different than the reason I hitched to Alaska, and, well, the rest is history!
Might be headed down that-a-ways this month; around the 17th. Not if the weather doesn't break by then though.
Cheers!
We saw it.
Driving from Fairbanks to Healy Monday late afternoon, we were about three miles north of Healy at 3:23pm when a very bright flare streaked across the sky starting at a point south-southeast of us and heading east. While this was about 20 minutes after sundown it was still very light out as the sky was perfectly clear and cold (about minus 25 then).
The streak lasted about 1.5 seconds before breaking up and burning up low on the horizon. It was yellow in color with a bit of orange fringing. We heard nothing which is not surprising as we apparently were several hundred miles away from where the meteor was. To us the streak appeared much closer than Tok - it seemed to be heading toward the Nenana River just a mile or two from the Denali Parks Highway.
We have never seen anything like this before and wondered if anyone else had seen it. We are glad for the confirmation that it was a meteor.
corinne - If you head this way, let me know and we can meet up. Dont hitch hike!
Frumious - From your description, I believe what you saw was the disintegration of the aliens escape pod. Seriously, Im in the foothills; myself and my neighbors have seen these about 10 times over 22 years...in full darkness they are as bright as car headlights
Prediction: in about 10 days, one of the supermarket tabloids will have a front-page photo of the ice-coated bug-eyed alien who was foolish enough to try to invade Alaska during the ninty below cold spell.
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