The Sky is Falling

I was driving home from work the other night, staring down the highway, quite relaxed because for once there weren’t any traffic problems. Then I saw what appeared to be a shooting star, but in a trajectory that I’d not seen one before.

On the occasions that I’ve been lucky enough to see them previously, they’ve all had a lateral trajectory, paralleling the horizon. This one was distinctly vertical, headed straight for the earth. It was about half way through it’s 2 second appearance that things got really interesting though. At that point, instead of just fading out, it blossomed into an orange fireball that lit up the sky quite significantly.

It was truly amazing and spectacular. And of course there was no one in the car with me for me to be able to say, “Wow, did you see that!?” It was all over the radio the next day and was seen from all over Alberta, but I couldn’t believe that I’d been lucky enough to witness it myself. I just happened to be on a stretch of the highway that was headed directly toward where it fell. Speculation is that pieces of it actually hit the ground and I have to confess to the most fleeting of thoughts as to whether I was witnessing a plane fall from the sky, but they were quickly dismissed.

What I saw appeared to fade from the bloom well above the horizon, certainly more so than this shot, captured on a police car's camera.