Fireball

Last night there was a fireball that raced across the sky in the southwestern United States. Of course, freaked out observers thought the end was near, that the aliens were (again) landing to take over the world. But of course, it was only a chunk of asteroid that became a meteor when it hit the atmosphere, a bright flash of light with a tail flaming across the sky. I once saw a similar cosmic event. I was in Boy Scouts and we were camping in the heat of summer and we had dragged our sleeping bags out of our tents in the relative coolness of the August night and were chatting away about whatever 13-year-old boys chat away about late at night in the woods when a bright red fireball streaked above us through the Milky Way. It was brilliant, impressive, awesome. But it was only a moment. I suppose we made some notice of it, though I can’t recall if we did. We certainly didn’t consider it some extra-terrestrial visitation as apparently some did after last night’s apparition. (This was before all the 60s sci-fi movies, not to mention E.T. and Close Encounters.) It was simply a really cool sky show, and I’ve remembered it ever since. Veronica McGregor, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted of last night’s show that "For all the millions of people that called, they can scratch that off their bucket list. They are very lucky to see a fireball.” Wow. Fifty years ago I didn’t realize I was lucky to see a celestial fireball. And could scratch it off my bucket list. When I was 13 years old.