Conflicting Information On East Coast Fireballs and Booms

The Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. is quick on the draw to credit Sunday March 29th’s fireball and sonic booms that were seen and heard down the East Coast to exploding space junk from the second stage of a Russian Soyuz rocket falling back to Earth. A Russian-built Soyuz rocket lifted off Thursday from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to launch a new crew and American billionaire Charles Simonyi to the International Space Station. The U.S. Naval Observatory claims they were expecting to see parts of that rocket around 8pm on Sunday (thanks for the warning).

Meanwhile, Stefan Bocchino of the USAF Joint Space Operations Center says the “bright light” seen over parts of the East Coast Sunday night was not a result of a man-made space object.

This is very similar to the February 15th Texas fireball, that was first credited to pieces of falling satellites which had collided over Siberia several days before, then quickly the story changed and a meteor was to blame.

Here are two reports that made it to www.ufostalker.com. The first fitting in perfectly with the timing and description of the March 29th East Coast Fireball.

Chesapeake, Virginia
I was not present, however my wife called to tell me about the incident. She heard a loud, rumbling boom about 9:45 PM Sunday. As it turns out, the sound was heard across several states, and several witnesses in the Hampton Roads area have come forward with their descriptions of what they encountered. It has been reported on several of the local news channels, and none of the government agencies have come forward with any information or knowledge of what it was. The meteorogical folks reported no unusual weather or meteors in the area, and NORAD nor NASA have not come forward with any knowledge of space debris coming down. It was suggested that it was the booster rockets from the Soyuz mission, but again, no confirmation from anyone who would certainly know. I hope this gives you a lead to follow up on, and I apologize for not having more info myself. I just thought you folks might find this one of some interest, especially since no government agencies are acknowledging anything.

The second note worthy because its from the area of many of Sunday nights reports and is oddly like a report from March 25th that took place in Oklahoma, both stories start with the person taking their dog out to pee and mention a video camera.

Fairfax, Virginia
I went to sleep early, and woke up a few hours later, I looled at me cell phone and if was 10:35PM. My dog needed to go out, so I put on my shoes and went with him to the garden. When I looked up I saw a small point of light that I thought was a star. The point of light flashed, and then I saw two other lights on either side of it. They began to move in the sky from left to right in triangle formation. I thought it was the underside of a plane, but there was no sound and the wingspan would have been too long for a normal plane. I watched it for a few seconds, and realised this was not a normal plane. I ran back inside and found my digital camera (Sony Cybershot)and ran back out to the garden. When I was back outside they were still there. I took a video for about a minute without using zoom on the camera. Because it was dark out, I could not see what was being captured on the camera screen very clearly. When they continued to move, I went up the stairs that lead to the balcony, and adjusted the zoom on the camera. The lights remained stationary but changing formation. After I filmed it, I went inside and woke up my grandmother. When we went back outside they were still there, and she was able to observe them for about a minute before they became too dim to see. There was no sound in the sky when I first saw them, towards the end of the video, I could hear a plane coming, and two planes flew overhead towards Dulles Airport. The lights continued to move into distance until they were no longer visible. The first half of the video the lights are almost too small to detect, they are in the centre of the screen towards the left. The yellow lights on the bottom of screen at times is a porch lamp from a neighbour’s house. The next day, I read a report that many people had seen lights in the sky over MD, DC, and VA due to space debris from a Russian Rocket that broke the earth’s atmosphere. People reported seeing fireballs, and red and green lights. The lights I saw were white, round and flew sideways and in intelligent formation. I did not see any colours or fireballs, and nothing fell to the ground. 03.29.09 Ms. L. Lyons