Declassified Report Admits an Interstellar Object Exploded Over Earth in 2014
About three years ago, I posted about Oumaumua, the massive, interstellar, turd-shaped space rock that our most sensitive, sophisticated detection instruments didn't pick up until it had already passed through Earth's orbit around the sun.
At the time, it was reported to be the first object from another solar system ever detected by our scientists. Which we now know, like the government telling us that celestial dong wasn't an alien probe (like the one sent to talk to the whales in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), was a total lie. They knew about an earlier interstellar death boulder. Then just kept it a secret from us. Until now:
Source - A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system, according to a recent memo released by the U.S. Space Command (USSC).
The object, a small meteor measuring just 1.5 feet (0.45 meter) across, slammed into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 8, 2014, after traveling through space at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h) — a speed that far exceeds the average velocity of meteors that orbit within the solar system. ...
That 2019 study argued that the wee meteor's speed, along with the trajectory of its orbit, proved with 99% certainty that the object had originated far beyond our solar system — possibly "from the deep interior of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy," the authors wrote. [But] their calculations was considered classified by the U.S. government. ...
Lt. Gen. John E. Shaw, deputy commander of the USSC, wrote that the 2019 analysis of the fireball was "sufficiently accurate to confirm an interstellar trajectory."
This confirmation retroactively makes the 2014 meteor the first interstellar object ever detected in our solar system, the memo added. The object's detection predates the discovery of 'Oumuamua — a now-infamous, cigar-shaped object that is also moving far too fast to have originated in our solar system — by three years, according to the USSC memo.
Great. Thanks for letting us know, Lt. General Shaw. It's great comfort to find out that we're basically spinning around in God's great driving range, with exploding Titleists coming at us from every angle. And not only is there nothing USSC or Space Force or the United Federation of Planets can do when we just miss getting drilled by one, other to yell "FORE!" after it's already flown by us.
So just throw this somewhere on your Impending Doom BINGO card. Somewhere in there between Pandemic, Climate Crisis, Super Volcano, Earthquakes, Biblical Apocalypse, and Free Space. Any minute now you could be sitting around waiting for the NBA playoffs and the next you're pounded into gravel like Alderaan. Floating off into the vacuum of space before you ever get to see the series finale of Ozark. Not even food for worms, because they'll be making the same thousand year decaying orbit trip into the sun as your frozen corpse.
Let's just hope the one that finally gets us comes without warning. Since there's no way we're getting a ragtag group of wildcat oil well drillers up there to save our species' ass anyway, it's best to just get it over with. Have a great weekend, everyone!