Lights in the sky before dawn on March 14, 2013 attracted the attention of residents of Ocala. Reports flooded in of strange crafts buzzing homes in before dawn. Both the Air Force and Navy said they weren’t performing any drills at that time, although locals said they saw a group of helicopters flying around the craft from about 150 feet off the ground. Fox News reported the incident and interviewed Tariq Malik, managing editor of Space.com, who too quickly dismissed the event as “special operations training missions” and nothing to be concerned about. We’ve heard that one before.
 

Russia's exploding meteor hurts thousands

                                    Russia meteor Feb. 15, 2013

         In Chelyabinsk, Russia, a meteor streaked through the skies above the Ural mountains region Friday morning, Feb. 15, 2013, before it exploded with a flash and boom that shattered glass in buildings and left hundreds of people hurt.
         The Interior Ministry said about 1,000 people had been hurt, including more than 200 children. The state-run RIA Novosti news agency said the fireball was a 40-ton meteor from outer space traveling at 33,000 mph. Most of those thousand who were hurt live in the Chelyabinsk region, the news agency said. The vast majority of injuries were not thought to be serious.
         The meteor left a white streak through the sky as the meteor’s vapor trail passed over the city. The national space agency, Roscosmos, said, “Scientists believed one meteoroid had entered the atmosphere, where it burned and disintegrated into fragments,” according to RIA Novosti.
         By noon on Feb. 15 (Russian time), more than 725 people had sought medical help and hundreds more had minor injuries. About 3,000 buildings sustained damage, mostly from broken glass, as a result of the shock waves caused by the blast. Hospitals, kindergartens and schools were among those affected.
         Amateur video footage showed a bright white streak moving rapidly across the sky, before exploding with an even brighter flash and a deafening bang. The explosion occurred about 9:20 am local time, when many people were out and about.
         The Roscosmos, agency said scientists believed one meteoroid had entered the atmosphere, where it burned and disintegrated into fragments. The resulting meteorites were believed to have scattered across three regions of Russia, one of them Chelyabinsk, as well as neighboring Kazakhstan, the news agency said. One large chunk was discovered in a lake in the Chelyabinsk region.
         NASA estimates there are about 4,700 “potentially hazardous” asteroids near Earth. Friday’s Chelyabinsk meteor came on the same day that a hefty asteroid passed by Earth at a pretty close range, in space terms. Known as 2012 DA14, the asteroid is 45 meters long, about half the length of a football field, but passed no closer than 17,100 miles (27,700 kilometers) from our planet’s surface. It was inside the ring of weather and communications satellites. The asteroid is about 180 feet (55 meters) in diameter.
         Asteroids have hit Earth many times. Four different cataclysms inflicted heavy destruction and worldwide calamities on Earth. Numerous cultures remember four major floods followed by mass migrations that were apparently related to asteroids passing close to Earth.
         NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program is trying to track down all asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth. NASA says 9,672 near-Earth objects have been discovered. Every day, “Earth is pummeled by more than 100 tons of material that spewed off asteroids and comets.” Fortunately, most of the asteroid trash is tiny and it burns up when it hits the atmosphere, creating meteors, or shooting stars. NASA says it’s very rare for big chunks of space litter to hit Earth’s surface. Those chunks are called meteorites.
         NASA said on its Web site that the Russian meteor was the largest reported since 1908, when the famous Tunguska event took place in remote Siberia, entering the atmosphere and exploded—leveling about 80 million trees, but leaving no crater.
         (Source: Filer’s Files #8-2013, Feb. 15, 2013)

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