The cameraman, filming a marathon in the Texas city of Austin, captured on film the fall of mysterious debris, similar to either a meteorite or ball lightning
Residents of the American states of Texas and Kentucky are trying to figure out what caused the optical phenomenon that they observed over the weekend. Reports of citizens about "fire" balls and the sounds of explosions accompanying their appearance on Saturday and Sunday were sent to the rescue service by the hundreds.
Until yesterday, ordinary people believed that the most probable version was that the debris of Russian and American satellites that collided high above Taimyr almost a week ago were falling on their heads. Some Americans seriously feared that the glow in the sky would not end and "space debris" would damage buildings on the ground. However, yesterday Russian and American experts, repeating each other's words almost word for word, said that this version was untenable. True, experts have not yet been able to reliably explain the nature of this strange phenomenon.
Rumors on Saturday that it was an incident in orbit that caused fireballs to appear in the Texas sky intensified after this version was indirectly acknowledged by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). When alarms from citizens reached a critical mass, exceeding the usual number of UFO observers, green men and other cosmic spirits, FAA officials believed their compatriots and issued a special information message to all pilots warning of possible danger. Commenting on this step, the official representative of the department Roland Herwig explained that, in principle, residents of Texas and Kentucky could observe how the debris of satellites burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere, but stressed that the FAA has no official confirmation of this connection.
But the townsfolk did not need it. They simply tied the proximity in time of two events - the appearance of thundering "fireballs" and the recent report of the first accidental collision in orbit of spacecraft. Almost none of the frightened Americans remembered about the discrepancy in space - and the accident occurred at an altitude of about 800 km above the Earth's surface.
Let us remind that the Russian military satellite Kosmos-2251, which has long been out of order and is simply rotating in orbit, and the operating American communications satellite Iridium-33 collided on Wednesday night. As the experts from the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency, who were the first to admit the fact of an orbital accident, stated that after the collision, two clouds of debris were formed, the number of which can reach six hundred. First Deputy Commander of the Russian Space Forces, Alexander Yakushin, confirmed that the fragments of the vehicles could be located at altitudes from 500 to 1300 km, but immediately stressed that they did not pose a threat to earthlings. Yesterday the words of the Russian general were repeated by his colleagues from across the ocean. As reported by AP, the US Strategic Command issued a statement emphasizingthat there is no connection between the collision of satellites and the phenomenon in Texas.
In turn, Interfax, citing a source in the Russian space industry, claims that the satellites collided tangentially and "remained practically intact."
For experts both in Russia and in the United States, the most realistic now seems to be a "miraculous" explanation of the phenomenon - for example, the entry into the Earth's atmosphere of a meteorite, the destruction of which was observed by the inhabitants of Texas and Kentucky. True, any large fragments of this celestial body, it seems, did not reach the surface of our planet. Police officers from helicopters inspected all the places from which signals about "fire" balls and explosions came from, and did not find any traces of these incidents.