"Bright sunny morning, blue sky, when something caught my eye out of the window.  An extremely bright trail, white like magnesium with sparks in its trail of  yellow and blue."

 Andri Knvfel
 Fireball Data Center
 International Meteor Organization

"Never before have I experienced a phenomenon like this", said the chief of the sea-rescue in Vasa 
Night to Tuesday red balls of light was observed over the southern part of the Bay of Botnia.

VASA

"During the night before Tuesday (...13th July 2004...) emergency services and sea-rescue received around 10 calls from people who believed they had seen emergency flares or something like it in the waters between 
Jakobsstad and Karleby Sea-rescue estimate it that it was a meteor shower and not a vessel in 
distress 

The reports came in to the emergency operators during approximately an hour. Three people 
described the phenomenon exactly the same way and authorities believes based on this that it was 
a meteor shower. 

"I have worked here for nineteen years and not once have I experienced a phenomenon like this", the 
chief of the Vasa sea-rescue central Peter Sundell said to FNB. Johanna Aarnio saw the 
phenomenon in the Larsmo archipelago. "The light I saw was large and bright but not red in color. 
First it flew pretty straight across the sky, then it lost a little altitude and finally fell down in a 
spiraling contrail. Before it disappeared it was as if it had blown up; first it was bright, then fainter 
and seemed to have fallen into the sea. No sound was heard", said Aarnio who was in the 
archipelago with some friends.

A photographic society on a summer excursion to the Valsörs also observed the phenomenon and 
suceded in taking a few pictures somewhat after midnight on the night before Tuesday. According to 
Johan Geisor the phenomenon lasted for a few minutes. 

"First I thought it was an aeroplane but as it moved across the sky we saw that it was something 
else", he says. The pictures the party had taken was received with great interest by the Ursa 
astronomical society. According to the society's papers' editor Marko Pekkola the picture seems to 
show meteor trails in the sky, something that according to him is a rare phenomenon in Finland. "It 
is with some probability that it is not large pieces we are talking about in this case. In most cases 
meteor fragments fall down in the size grains of sand", he says. "More thorough mathematical 
calculations are needed to say exactly how large the meteorite or meteorite trails where. If the 
meteorite is made out of iron it can act as a spectacular sight in the sky while it in reality is much 
smaller then one would think", he says. 

Marko Toivonen, who is responsible for the meteorite section at Ursa considers the Bay of Bothnia 
meteorite to be an unusually large meteor. 

Since the light intensity of a meteor is directly proportional to the size of the ball Toivonen suspects it 
to have been a meteorite with a diameter or up to 2 meters. But more probable is that it was more 
in the size of a soccer ball. It was not a question of space junk - the objects trajectory was all too 
straight to have come from something out of orbit. 


-----
Patrik 'Putte' Henriksson

In message
<4057a290$0$3305$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com>, 
Lilian <Lilian.Hobbs@nospam.dsl.pipex.com> writes

Did anyone else see the fireball at 00:55 tonight. I was just going out to move my dome when this fireball headed down through Gemini. It was so bright that it left a trail which lasted a few seconds. Its been a long time since I have seen one that bright.

Lilian