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July 8, 2008 | 3:18 pm

UFO panic grips Israel

Posted by Adam Wills

A meteor entered the skies of central Israel on Tuesday night at about 8:15 p.m. Astronomers had failed to predict the arrival of this large hunk of rock, which apparently freaked out a number of Israelis, JPost and Haaretz reported.

Yigal Pat-El, chairman of the Israeli Union of Astronomers, told Army Radio that the meteor was exceptionally large, and that its entry into the atmosphere was not expected.
Nevertheless, he emphasized that this was not an uncommon occurrence.
"Meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere all the time - it's not a rare phenomenon. The meteor was relatively large - most do not weigh a thousandth of a gram, and it seems this meteor would have weighed a few grams," he said.


I'm still pondering Haaretz's "Meteor sighting sparks UFO panic in Israel" headline. What does it say when Israelis, who are have been pounded by rockets over the last few years, go to "little green men" when there's something bright and noisy in the sky?

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Not Meteor Israeli Satellite - Cross Post - ironic it’s Israeli after all ... This email from my friend Rob Matson, of California, ace satellite calculator.

Doug

Hi again, Doug,

Some more information on the reentry. It was the 3rd stage of the Shavit rocket that launched Ofeq-7 from Palmachim Air Force Base on June 10th, 2007.

—Rob

——-Original Message——-
From: Matson, Robert D.
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 5:04 PM
To: ‘mexicodoug;
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] 5:15 UT slow, bright Mediterranean bolide

Hi Doug,

Please feel free to forward this to the Meteorite list for me (my posts from work don’t seem to make it there).

I just did a quick check on this, suspecting it might be a satellite re-entry. Now before you jump the gun and tease me, “But Rob, it was travelling east-to- west!”, let me add that it was actually ~because~ it was
travelling east to west AND passing over Israel that a lightbulb went off in my head. Israeli satellites are always launched in retrograde orbits, and I thought it would be an amusing case of karma if this turned out to be one of their own.

Well, in short, it was:

Shavit R/B, USSPACECOM #31602, launched some time in 2007.

I just plotted its trajectory as seen from Jerusalem, and bingo.

—Rob

Added: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:34 EDT


Added: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:56 EDT

Comment by MexicoDoug on 7/08/08 at 4:59 pm
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