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Sights, Sounds and Smells of the Fireball
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 02:00 pm ET
12 October 2000
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fireball_witnesses_001012 Scientists studying the Tagish Lake meteorite interviewed some 70 eyewitnesses to the January 18 streaking fireball. They collected several photographs and one sketch, and heard accounts of odd smells and booming sounds. 
Beat Kornel observed the entire fireball event from his cabin, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) from where it crashed into Tagish Lake. Kornel drew the picture above based on what he saw, said researcher Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario. Brown called Kornel's sketch a good representation of what an observer would have seen. "This luminous part of the trajectory of the event is several minutes prior to the impact of small fragments on the ice," Brown said. "It represents the passage of the main portion of the meteoroid through the atmosphere and the accompanying light thus produced." Ewald Lemke, a 63-year-old realtor from Atlin, British Columbia, photographed the fireball (below). Scientists involved in the study said the streaking meteor was generally described as a multicolored object with a tail. The fireball, which lasted about 15 seconds, produced a spectacular dust trail that was visible for about two hours in the local area as it drifted towards the southeast, pushed by high-altitude winds. The brighter of the two final flares was described as lighting up the landscape to 10 times brighter than daylight with a bluish to greenish light. A handful of witnesses said they heard noises accompanying the fireball, which scientists say are likely electrophonic sounds. Some witnesses also said they smelled the fireball, both soon after the event and later. The smells were described as sulphurous, or like hot metal and rock. Seismographs showed that the space rock shook the ground across a wide region.
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