Nexus - 0403 - New Times Magazine-pages

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I hired a light plane so I could visit outlying stations and Aboriginal settlements to search for eyewitnesses and for "ground zero". This took some three weeks. A summary of all currently available witness data follows: A large orange-red spherical "fireball" with a very small bluish- white conical tail had flown from low down in the south over observers to the north. Some observers reported that the fireball was cylindrical in form and more yellow-blue-white in colour. It was heard as a pulsed, roaring or loud diesel-engine sound—well before it passed overhead. It dropped off no glowing fragments, and had no long, luminous tail or sparks—as is common meteor activity. Its speed was similar to a 747 jetliner or a fast jet-plane and was obviously less than the speed of sound since loud noises were heard in advance of its arrival. The sounds heard before the "object" arrived were most definite- ly not "normal" electrophonic sounds as have been quite commonly reported from historical meteor fireball events. Such electrophonic sounds are experienced as weird "pings" and "whees" of low-vol- ume intensity and are not fully understood at this time, but they are believed to be due to hertzian electromagnetic (EM) waves pro- duced in the bolide plasma trail and propagated at the speed of light to the observer—in advance of the bolide. These sounds are thought to couple harmonically with the inner ear or cause nearby objects to vibrate sympathetically, thus producing the characteristic low-volume sounds. No sonic booms were reported, and no observer believed that any explosion was heard until the object had got to ground level, or very nearly so, behind low hills or treeline cover and then exploded or impacted. The fireball object flew apparently parallel to the Earth's curva- ture in a long, "nap-of-the-Earth" arcing trajectory at low altitude (possibly some 1,000 to 2000 metres), from low down on the south- ern horizon—not with a "normal" meteor's inbound high-angle, high-altitude trajectory. The fireball lit up some observers and their vicinity as it passed overhead. Its flight trajectory was observed over a distance of least 250 km—although it probably had a much longer flight path well out over the southern Indian Ocean from Antarctica. It then appeared to arc down towards the ground before it disappeared out of sight behind trees or low hills. This was followed by a near-blinding, massive high-energy burst of blue-white light that rippled for about three to five seconds. This lit up the windless, cloudless, moonless night sky as if it were day- light. Observers could see for some 100 km in every direction at ground level—"as clear as day". The energy intensity involved in this light flash was similar to the light flash generated by a signifi- cant nuclear blast, and in many respects the incident strongly resembled a night-time nuclear test. A huge red-coloured flare then shot vertically skywards for some considerable distance (several kilometres?). This event was imme- diately followed by a massive seismic ground wave that hit the observers nearest to "ground zero" such that rocks and beer cans vibrated off tables and the ground shook so violently that persons tending a campfire fell over. Then followed a very loud, major explosive blast that was heard over a 250 km by 150 km corridor. Minor quake damage was reported as far as 150 km southeast of ground zero (the other direc- tions, excepting Leonora to the southwest, being largely uninhabit- ed). Located that night in Laverton was an engineer—with Gulf War experience of missiles and aircraft breaking the sound barri- er—who described it as "definitely a major explosive concussion- wave blast [not a sonic boom], similar to, but much bigger than, a normal open-pit mine blast". A large, deep-red-orange-coloured hemisphere of opaque light, with a silver outer-shell lining, then rose from ground level to hover around over the "ground zero location". This structure, when fully developed, was approximately three times the size of a typical Goldfields setting Moon, as seen by observers located 30 to 50 km away (in other words, it was very big), and it "bobbed around a bit for nearly two hours before disappearing suddenly—as if someone threw the light switch off". This "half-soup-plate structure", looking like a "deep-red, very large and half-set Sun", was seen by two observers from widely separated locations, one at the Banjawarn station buildings and one at the Deleta station buildings. Dogs at both locations went totally berserk, whining and howling and attempting to get off their leads whilst the aerial light hemisphere was up. Presumably there was an ultrasonic or EM wave propagation to which the dogs were extremely sensitive. Aboriginal prospectors who were camped very near to ground zero at the Freeman's Find gold prospect were extremely spooked by the event, believing that it was "the end of the world". Some of them thought that they had witnessed a "jumbo jet" crash behind a range of low hills. They gathered their swags (bed rolls) close together as they were too scared to sleep apart. In the morning they climbed a hill to look for fires in the distance but could see no smoke. They quickly departed the area for the safety of Leonora. One Aboriginal stockman observer, located at the Banjawarn sta- tion buildings, believed that he was witnessing a fairly slow-mov- ing "UFO" and became very worried that they were going to land and abduct him and his two companions—since it flew directly at him and then passed, very noisily, low overhead before going into Tom Prem eka Lecco Skagcortn, 54 * NEXUS APRIL - MAY 1997 WESTERN AUSTRALIA