Was there some sort of large fireball reported over Ireland in 1995?

Justin1982

Kind of hoping that there is someone that might be able to tell me what I saw back in 1995. Its been wrecking my head for years now as to what exactly it was.

Basically I saw a huge explosion that lit up a pitch black night while out walking on a country road about 10 km outside Tullamore. I was thirteen at the time and it wasnt exactly the information age back then so I couldnt get on the internet with a video from an iphone.

The initial explosion of light was a blinding blue light that lasted for about 1-2 seconds before fading exponentially over another period of 2-3 seconds. As it faded it was still strong enough to light up the whole countryside the same way that the sun would. Initially I thought that the source in the sky was strong enough to light up the whole of Ireland or at least a large chunk of the midlands. I mean like it would definitely have lit up a town like Tullamore even with the street lighting on.

As a kid I presumed that it was a star that exploded or something but it was obviously a metorite exploding high in the atmosphere.

There is a few things that I still cannot understand about the event. Firstly, I thought that a huge amount of people would have seen it, that it would be in the papers and some of the lads in school would have seen or heard about it. Alas, I have never come across anyone who witnessed it, heard about it and I never came across any reports of it anywhere.
Secondly, the explosion in the sky hung for at least ten minutes which is wierd. When the explosion happened, it took myself and my mother about 4 seconds to realize what had happened and where the source of the light was. When we looked up we could see a circular patch of light in the sky between x0.5 and x1 the size of a full moon. It was composed of rings of different colours moving inwards towards the centre of the circle. This ring of light fading very very slowly over the ten minutes until it faded completely from view.
Thirdly, once we spotted the source of the light in the sky, it didnt move at all in the sky for the full ten minutes as the light faded. That is just wierd. I cant really explain how a meteroite would explode high in the atmosphere, hang there for ten minutes and not move.

And no it wasnt a massive firework before someone suggests it.

shedweller

My dad said he saw a bright flash from a meteorite years ago. I must ask him when he saw it and what he saw.

OP, i had the unnerving thought that your meteorite was heading straight towards you, hence the circular fireball! That would be interesting!!

squonk

Could be an oncoming meterite i.e. one heading straight towards you. I saw something like this back in 1992. I saw what looked like a bright star in the summer sky grow to about the size of a 5p piece and then get smaller again over the space of about 30 seconds.

There was a fireball seen over Ireland in the 90's but I think that was 93/94 actually. I can't pinpoint the year exactly. I don't recall anything from 1995 though. What time of year was this?

_Whimsical_

Ball lightening maybe ?
What month was it ? There was some ball lightning in late July/early Aug over Galway city.
There is a thread where it's mentioned here and there's a pdf of a news paper article on it from the time : http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056307433

Justin1982

It happened most likely between Mid Sept 1995 - Nov 1995. I think I had just started secondary school. I'm about 95% percent positive of that.

No it definitely was not ball lightening. I have to emphasize that the light was blinding for about 1-2 seconds. As in, we were not looking at the source but we still could not see a single thing except light. Initially I thought it was a car that came tearing around the corner of the road with full lights on that we hadnt heard or seen coming.

I was only 13 but I still remember that it was easy to judge the height at which the event occured was definitely upper atmosphere. It looked like it was off the planet even it looked so distant.

We tried to get home to get camera and take picture but we were over ten minutes walk from home in the middle of nowhere.

Oh and there was no sound from it as well which I would imagine implies it was very much upper atmosphere.

ZeRoY

Found this online:

I seen one in August 1995…at around 2am in the morning out checking a sick cow..it was a moonlight night and a huge fireball…about the size of a hurling sliotar ball (or a baseball) travelled from a Northern direction down South wards…it was very bright, was directly straight overhead in centre of the sky…and glowed as it travelled at a fair pace before disapearing into the moon lit distance after about 2 or 3 minutes…I contacted various Astronomy sites about it but reckon I wasnt taken too serious..I must have been the only one in Ireland to see it I think!!

wil

ZeRoY wrote: »

Found this online:

That was the one last September, nothing to do with the OPs sighting in 1995

brav

wil wrote: »

That was the one last September, nothing to do with the OPs sighting in 1995

The quote ZeRoY took was from a comment on that page which someone explains he saw a fireball around same time as OP

ZeRoY

brav wrote: »

The quote ZeRoY took was from a comment on that page which someone explains he saw a fireball around same time as OP

Thanks, should have added that yes, from one of the comment.

MMAGirl

I saw one when I was out with my Dad in Offaly in 1995.

I only remember the year because my sister was just gone to Dublin to start college. She used to come for walks with us at night but i remember we were wondering how she was getting on in her new digs that night. And I took that as a sign that she was going to be fine.

My Dad was into astronomy so used to take us out to teach us the night sky. So we always looked at the night sky as we walked.

I remember we saw it in the sky as a streak first and it got so bright it was like daytime for a few secs. Never forget it. It was in the paper too that week. Loads of people saw it. There was even some scientist fella from Dublin down asking questions about it a week after, trying to find it.
I've seen a few bright fireballs but this one was hundreds of times brighter than your normal fireball. Not quite as bright as the sun but much brighter than a full moon.

There was a good moon that night and it left smoke across the sky that you could see in the moonlight for ages.