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Ice Falls (Not Hail): Hydrometeors; Cryometeors; Megacryometeors

This story published online:
Thursday, February 24, 2005 1:02 AM CST

Ice chunk that fell from sky into homeowner's yard defies explanation

By MIKE FRAZIER - H&R Staff Writer
DECATUR - The sky, apparently, is falling.

Its point of impact? The back yard of William and Anna Mae Beals at 6060 Thomas Road.

A slab of ice about the size of a concrete block hurtled from the heavens Wednesday morning toward their home in southeast Decatur.

Fortunately, no one was hurt.

But their neighbors were shaken when they saw the chilling visitor land.

Darlene Scribner was sipping coffee and watching birds out her backyard window with her sister and cousin when a white flash descended toward the earth.

"We were shocked," said her sister Jo Ann Wheeler.

"I've never seen anything like that before in my life," said her cousin, Joyce Wetzel.

So where'd the icy chunk come from?

"I don't have a clue," said a puzzled Anna Mae Beals.

Could it have fallen from an airplane's wing? That's unlikely, aviation experts say. Ice can cause serious problems if not removed from a plane's wings.

"We take great pains to make sure airplanes are de-iced," said Elizabeth Isham Cory, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

"Something that big on an aircraft doesn't sound right," said Gene Marcinkowski, Decatur Airport director.

Could the ice cube be the frozen flush of a portable toilet aboard a high-flying plane? Nope. Waste is removed when a plane touches down. Plus, the neighbors concluded, the ice cube was white and clear - not the typical colors of a potty flush.

Could it be a freak weather phenomenon? The chunk of ice initially stumped even Jim Angel, state climatologist with the Illinois State Water Survey.

"That's a real mystery," Angel said.

Angel then recalled reports of large ice chunks falling from the skies in places as far away as Spain. The cool slabs usually fall in January, February and March and can weigh as much as 30 pounds.

Experts call them megacryometeors. It's not really clear why they fall.

"One of these things is very weird," Angel said. "It's not like it hasn't happened to other people. It happens rarely, but it does happen."

Source
 
Ice falls from sky in eventful cricket match

by Jan Thom

A FRIENDLY game of cricket came to a halt when a lump of ice fell from the sky and exploded on the pitch.

And the game from hell went from bad to worse when a teenage fielder, Stephan Wall, got a crack on a head from a ball, needing treatment from a paramedic who was watching the game.

Not only that, but Murston player Graham Moore collapsed when running between the wickets and had to be taken to Sittingbourne Memorial Hospital.

Priory member Graham Owen said a block of ice appeared from nowhere and exploded on the pitch.

"We heard this whoosh sound and then slush just spread across the turf covering an area of around six feet," he said.

"Everyone stopped in amazement for a couple of minutes but just carried on, but it was certainly a talking point after the game."

Davington were playing the friendly against Murston Cricket Club in a 40 overs match.

Murston Captain Steve Willis was batting when the ice crashed from the sky.

He said: "It was very strange, a bit spooky really and we tried very hard to come up with a satisfactory explanation, but we can only think it had fallen from a plane.

"I was just about to face the ball when this explosion happened in the middle of the field. I stepped back, and then we inspected the ground which was soaking wet. It was really amazing.

"It as quite an eventful day. The young lad had to be treated for a head injury and then Graham collapsed mid wicket and we had to take him to hospital.

"It’s the first time we have played Davington for about 15 years and I think that after Sunday we might invite them over to our ground rather than play at Faversham."

MP Glenda Jackson has raised the issue of ice and debris falls from planes and was told in a parliamentary question that the Government the Civil Aviation Authority treated such incidents seriously.

Experts say ice can come loose from aircraft when they bank and turn or alter height.

Source
 
Fist Sized Block Of Ice Falls From Sky

June 23, 2005, 11:07:04
Bizarre

Thats bizarre: A block of ice the size of a fist has smashed through the roof of a Japanese house after falling from the sky.

Two brothers returned home to find the ice block on their living room floor and a hole, measuring 50cm by 50cm, in the roof.

Fortunately nobody was injured in the bizarre incident.

One of the men told Britain's Kyodo news agency: "It gives me the chills to think that we could have been at home when the ice hit the roof."

www.femalefirst.co.uk/bizarre/65182004.htm
 
Not new news by any means. This was one of the very first major news stories which suggested that seachange in Science - the heavy Spanish and European ice falls of four or five years back. Those ice falls were photographed, weighed and chemically analyzed and the meteorologists generally agreed that these were "snowballs from space."

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, but unless I’ve mis-interpreted the (available-on-the-internet-whilst-I’m-at-work-and-should-be-doing-something-else) data, THIS article specifically precludes the “Ice from space” theory, for the Spanish incident, at least. The ice falls were determined to be made up of “rainwater”. NASA assisted the team in providing data on the level of ozone over South-Eastern Spain during this time, and they were found to be very low. This is one of the most vital ingredients in making hail. The fact the sky was cloudless is largely irrelevant, as all that is needed is a nucleic seed (found to be particulates of silica), which is then tossed up and down through a “nearly saturated” atmosphere. Another group of scientists have shown that a “condensation aggregate” (a growing ice ball) could freefall through 19 kilometres of atmosphere. This 10 minutes freefall would be sufficient for 1KG ice balls to be created.

THIS more general site, discusses the same Spanish phenomena in 2000, but can only speculate as to the origin of the ice. This time aircraft contrails (not the aircraft themselves) are posited with providing the seed for the hail stones.

The article HERE confirms terrestrial origin for all ice falls investigated. The link to the Daily telegraph (Sidney, Australia) that asks the question “did a chunk of ice fall to earth from a comet” is broken, and has no follow-up tale in the newspaper archives, suggesting that the answer to the query was a straight-forward “no”.

THIS link has the most interesting information, with a very good history of ice falls under the first 3-4 inches of banner section. Interestingly, the only report to come out and state the ice falls are extra-terrestrial in origin is one from a Chinese team in 1995. Mr Wang, the Chinese spokesperson, made the following comment:

“They are white, semi-transparent, with an irregular shape and what are apparently air
bubbles on both the surface and inside the ice. Unlike man-made ice, the ice has air
bubbles, is relatively light and doesn't have the layered structure of hailstones,"
he said.

"Judging from this, they can only be seen to be ice meteorites," he said.

On the contrary, Mr Wang, from my initial, untutored exploration of this fascinating topic, I can confirm that air bubbles are commonly found in hail stones of terrestrial origin, both man-made and naturally occurring. Most tellingly of all I could find no further information, or follow ups to this story. HERE is a "meteorite central" forum members opinion about this particular story. It must be said, he holds the same views as myself.

Now, just to be clear about this: I have an open mind about the possibility that ice falls from space may be theoretically possible. It’s just that I would look to other explanations first. The theme of many of the pieces above leans more towards atmospheric changes / global warming / anomalous weather conditions as being the cause for 99% of ice falls. With all things Fortean, however, it is the 1% that should interest us most. ;)
 
Purple rain:

Dec 21, 2005 7:18 am US/Eastern

'Blue Ice' Remains A Mystery

David Highfield
Reporting


(KDKA) The mystery of ‘blue ice’ in western Pennsylvania is ongoing.

Part of the mystery is that the ‘blue ice’ that has been reported is actually purple.

KDKA’ David Highfield reported the purple splotches in the snow on Monday night. The report sparked phone calls and e-mails from several other people claiming to also have ‘blue ice’ in their yards.

The FAA doesn't have the people to investigate each claim, but they are investigating the original case in Butler County.

The question is whether or not the purple splotches could be blue ice.

‘Blue ice’ is toilet waste that leaks from airplanes.

The FAA says some suspicious spots in upstate New York turned out to the work of birds.

“It's highly unlikely,” said Nicole Begley, of the National Aviary. “I don't want to speculate on what it was, but it would take a rather large flock of fruit eating birds.

“Most of those fruit eating birds have moved on.”

Begley also said that there's not much fresh fruit left around and that birds don't normally defecate all at the same time while in flight.

“There was actually toilet paper inside that purple stuff,” said Stan Walchesky, of Jefferson Township. “I said this ain’t birds.”

Highfield asked the spokesperson from the FAA if there were any health risks involved with ‘blue ice’ and he said that he honestly didn't know.

“The risks of blue ice from a health perspective are relatively small,” said Dr. Bruce Dixon, of the Allegheny County Health Department.

Cheryl Hall in Irwin said that she's afraid to clean up the spots on her deck.

“I don't want to clean it up,” Hall said. “I'm petrified. I have three small children. I don't need any health issues.”

Dr. Dixon says people can hose it off in better weather to prevent stains and that there's no reason to worry about your dogs.

“The issue is much more aesthetic,” Dr. Dixon said. “People don't like the idea of human excrement being dispersed throughout the air and landing on their property.

“The concentrations are small enough that if you have a dog that ingests some of this stuff, it's not going to have any long term health effects.”

http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_354231053.html

At least Prince isn't a suspect

By Brandon Keat
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, December 23, 2005

One thing is certain about the purple sprinkles and splotches splattered across snow-covered lawns, gutters and driveways in Jefferson Township, Butler County.

Berry-eating pterodactyls are not to blame.

Stan Walchesky and neighbors on Neupert Road in Jefferson began noticing the stuff last week and speculated that it was "blue ice," the euphemism for the chemically treated lavatory waste that sometimes falls from airplanes.

A Federal Aviation Administration official dismissed that claim Thursday, saying the mysterious substance is likely bird droppings.

Walchesky doesn't buy it.

"If it was birds, the sky would have been black with birds," he said. "It's (human) feces."

State Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Betsy Mallison said there has been a rash of similar complaints in the past week in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Beaver and Armstrong counties. The DEP's southwest office, which does not cover Butler County, does not plan to conduct any tests.

Officials at the DEP's northwest office, which covers Butler County, encouraged people to report suspected blue ice. Officials there have received no blue ice reports so far.

While the FAA did not test any of the stuff at Walchesky's home, the agency investigated the complaint. FAA spokeswoman Arlene Murray said no planes flew over Walchesky's neighborhood last week, when he says the substance he calls "purple rain" fell across the area.

The blue or purple material known as blue ice sometimes leaks from airplanes. However, the substance -- tinted by chemicals in airplane commodes -- typically freezes to airplanes when leaking in cold weather, Murray said.

"We are still open to look into other aspects of it, if the individuals are able to bring us more specific information," Murray said.

But the FAA's suggestion that the stuff is the product of berry-eating birds doesn't fly either, said Mark Bremer, interim manager of animal programs at the National Aviary on the North Side.

For one, the sheer volume makes it unlikely, he said.

For another, Bremer said, he works with 600 birds every day and knows what they are -- and are not -- capable of producing.

"Even if it was 500 birds in one moment where they all defecate at once, I don't know if that would produce something as conspicuous as this 'blue ice,' " Bremer said. "This seems like a heavily concentrated situation that is something other than bird feces. If we had pterodactyls flying around, that would be different."

Murray said the FAA does not do chemical analysis of suspected blue ice samples. Walchesky said he plans to contact the DEP to see if the agency can identify the substance.

Blue ice reports are rare, and instances of the FAA and airlines acknowledging the problem are rarer still.

A US Airways crew cleaned clumps of blue-and-purple material from a South Buffalo Township, Armstrong County, home in 2002, but neither the airline nor the FAA conceded that the substance came from an airplane. The DEP tested samples, but couldn't identify the material, Mallison said.

In November 2004, a chunk of blue ice crashed through the roof of a woman's home in Lynn, Mass., north of Boston, after tumbling from a low-flying jetliner. In 2003, a judge ordered American Airlines to pay a Santa Cruz, Calif., man $3,236 to repair damage from two blue ice chunks that smashed through a skylight on his boat.

Airlines are required to fix leaks in lavatories whenever they're discovered and can face fines if the problem persists or is shown to be the result of negligence, Murray said.

Walchesky's neighbor Bruce Brewer, who lives along Route 356, said he has been hit several times by the mysterious purple rain in the last decade. He's sometimes found toilet paper and fecal matter mixed in with the stuff.

Brewer is sure the airliners that sometimes fly over his house are to blame. Like Walchesky, he doesn't buy the FAA's bird alibi.

"We'll take a sample," Brewer said, "and see whether they have to eat those words."

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-rev ... 06811.html
 
Posted on Wed, Dec. 21, 2005

Ice chunk falls from sky in Japan

Associated Press

TOKYO - A disc-shaped piece of ice of unknown origin plummeted from the sky onto a golf course near Tokyo Wednesday, narrowly missing players on the fairway but causing no injuries, police said.

Authorities were investigating the bizarre incident, said Saitama prefectural (state) police spokesman Masahiko Kuwashima.

Four players at the Heisei Club golf course in Saitama, just outside Tokyo, heard a loud thud and found a disc-shaped hunk of ice - about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in diameter and 15 centimeters (6 inches) thick - broken into several pieces, Kuwashima said.

He said police investigators have asked the Transport Ministry to check a possibility that ice stuck on an airplane might have fallen, and are waiting for the ministry's response.

There have been several past reports of ice falling in Chiba prefecture (state) near Tokyo's Narita International Airport, Kuwashima said.

But there is no airport in Saitama, and the golf course involved Wednesday is not known to be beneath a flight route, he said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the mysterious incident, Kuwashima said.

"It's puzzling," he said, adding that the ice, which weighs 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds), was being kept in a police department freezer.

www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo ... 457620.htm

And the nice people at the Anomalist alos threw in this link to a case from last year - one of my New Years' resolutions will be to use the word megacryometeor more often in conversation:

Megacryometeor Hits Sebring Home

By JOE SEELIG
[email protected]
Published: Nov 10, 2004


SEBRING — A Sebring man said Tuesday that he was glad he was sleeping in a different bed when a chunk of ice known as a megacryometeor crashed through his bedroom window, showering the unoccupied bed with broken glass.

Like a scene from the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow,” when large hail bombarded Japan, Cecil Blackwell, 79, living in the 3000 block of Simka St., said he was awakened by the football shaped ice ball crashing onto his bedroom floor at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday. v “I still think it came off an airplane,” Blackwell said, explaining he was 20 years retired from a major airline. He said he’d seen things like this when he was working.

He told the deputy he had heard of ice chunks crashing into airplanes.

“Don’t know what it weighed,” Blackwell said. “I know it was heavy like a bowling ball.”

Blackwell said after sheriff’s deputies finished their investigation, he put the ice ball into the sink where it melted.

He said he would have kept it if he had thought of it.

According to a Highlands County sheriff’s report by deputy Scott McKinney, Blackwell reported looking out of his window and seeing a car driving away from his home, but the ice ball was too big for anyone to have thrown the object.

McKinney reports the object on Blackwell’s floor was about eight inches in diameter and appeared to have come through the window. There were no footprints or car tracks at the scene, he reports.

It was a mystery with the case left open, until McKinney spoke with Cpl. John Hood on Sunday.

“I was informed by Cpl. J Hood that there is a weather condition that could possibly cause large chunks of ice to fall from the sky,” McKinney reports. “Research was done via the Internet on the subject of megacryometeors.”

Sometimes large chunks of ice formed in the atmosphere and fall to the ground even in cloudless skies, McKinney states.

“At times these pieces of ice can be as large as a small car weighing up to 400 pounds,” McKinney wrote.

The case is now considered closed.

Blackwell said the ice ball took out about a third of the top of a church style window. He had the damage repaired on Saturday afternoon for $250.

According to a Web site at: http://northcoastcafe.typepad.com/north ... e_bal.html

“A Spanish-American scientific team is monitoring ice events in the United States this winter following research on a baffling phenomenon first detected here.

“They are not watching for ordinary ice storms or slick roads, but incidents involving ‘megacryometeors,’ great balls of ice that fall out of the clear blue sky – possibly because of global warming.

“‘I’m not worried that a block of ice may fall on your head,’ said Jesus Martinez-Frias of the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid. ‘I’m worried that great blocks of ice are forming where they shouldn’t exist.’”

Heads, however, have very nearly been cracked by megacryometeors, a term coined from ‘mega,’ which means ‘big,’ ‘cryo’ for ‘ice’ and ‘meteor,’ the extraterrestrial debris that streaks through the atmosphere. Most weigh 25 to 35 pounds, but one whopper found in Brazil tipped the scales at 440 pounds.”

According to sheriff’s Public Information Officer Sgt. Jamie Casey, in researching the megacryometeors, he learned that there have only been seven or eight such incidents recorded in the United States.

“There was no photograph taken into evidence of the ice ball,” Casey said.

www.highlandstoday.com/MGBMCNKOC1E.html
 
More on the "purple rain" mentioned above:

Mysterious ‘purple rain’ falls in Williamsburg

By Tom DiStefano, Clarion News writer


WILLIAMSBURG -- “It’s not the birds doing it,” said Joe Billotte of the mysterious substance he found on property he owns in Williamsburg .

Billotte says he found a “pinkish-purple” liquid spattering the ground and the side of a mobile home along State Route 68 south of Exit 62. Billotte lives across the highway from the mobile home.

What he found looked a lot like what he saw on the evening television news regarding an incident near Saxonburg.

KDKA-TV on Dec. 19 reported five homeowners found discolored snow in southeastern Butler County ; one man said it was a purplish color and claims he found toilet paper in the stains.

The man called it “purple rain,” but it’s more often called “blue ice.”

Blue ice is toilet waste from passenger planes. The color is from chemicals added to the water to improve its odor, help break down solids and keep it from freezing. The waste is held in tanks until emptied by airport ground crews.

The Federal Aviation Administration explains on its website that holding tank valves sometimes leak on commercial aircraft, causing small amounts of blue liquid to freeze on the outside of the plane at high altitudes.

Sometimes the blue ice breaks free from the aircraft while in flight. The ice often thaws as it falls into warmer regions of the atmosphere, and is liquid by the time it reaches the ground.

The FAA says the thawed blue ice dissipates into “miniscule droplets that are nearly invisible.”

But the droplets found in Williamsburg , Saxonburg and other locations are neither miniscule nor invisible.

Billotte said he found spots ranging from pea-sized to a little larger than a silver dollar. The stuff that hit the side of his trailer left streaks a foot or more long and a couple inches wide, he said.

The spots were mostly found concentrated in splotches about 10 to 15 feet in diameter.

Some of the spots he found were sunk into the snow, inside melted areas Billotte thinks were created by the darker color absorbing more sunlight than the white snow.

And the blue ice doesn’t always thaw. There is at least one report of a chunk of blue ice hitting and breaking through the roof of a home, landing on the bed of a young girl who found quite a mess in her room when she returned from school.

Billotte says he has heard recent reports about a blue ice incident near Brookville, and has heard privately that other land owners in Clarion County are finding the substance.

Clarion County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Rearick said his office received no reports of blue ice.

Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Freda Tarbell said she has heard of no recent reports, but perhaps remembers one similar incident in her seven years at the DEP Meadville Regional office.

Tarbell says the DEP has no regulations regarding aircraft sanitation systems, and that such matters might be handled by the FAA.

The FAA and the airlines say many reports of “blue ice” or toilet wastes from aircraft are actually birds. Some birds eat fruit or berries which can give a blue or purple color to their droppings.

But in December in Western Pennsylvania , there are no berries, and the songbirds that eat them have long departed for warmer climes.

Some people think aircraft purposely release the contents of the toilet tanks while in flight, but the FAA says this is a myth. The dump valve handle is on the outside of airliners and the tanks can only be drained by maintenance crews on the ground. The pilot has no way of operating the valve while in flight.

The color of the toilet water can vary from greenish-blue to purplish-blue, apparently depending on the particular type or brand of chemical used.

Aviation and health officials say the blue ice presents a minimal health risk at most.

But Billotte said he will not let his grandchildren play in the area, and others say, without knowing what chemicals are used, they are concerned about exposing pets and children to what might be toxic chemicals.

Some methanol-based antifreeze products, such as automotive antifreeze, taste sweet to animals, but are toxic and can kill them when ingested.

And of course there is concern about possible disease-causing biological contamination from human wastes.

There is an old joke about not eating yellow snow; it might also apply to blue or purple snow.

http://www2.theclarionnews.com/General_News/48385.shtml
 
There is a megacryometeor entry and Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacryometeor

Which links to this from a 2002 conference:

Megacryometeors: fall of atmospheric ice blocks from ancient to modern times

presented by

Jesus Martinez-Frias
Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA) Associated to the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial Ctra de Torrejón a Ajalvir, km 4 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid (Spain)
joint research with
David Travis (Department of Geography and Geology, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater WI, 53190, USA)

Although the term "Tunguska Event" normally refers to the tremendous cosmic explosion that was observed on June 30, 1908 in Central Siberia over the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Irkutsk Region, and Yakutiya, destroying about 2,150 square kilometre of Siberian taigà (1-5), some other alternative hypothesis have also been proposed, including, among others, a black hole (6), anti- and mirror- matter (7-9) and the coupling between tectonic and atmospheric processes (10,11). A much less violent but related threat is that of anomalously large hail and "clear air" ice blocks that have been reported striking the surface at an increasing rate during the past few years.

Since the unusual events of falls of large blocks of ice were first reported in Spain in 2000, additional occurrences have been identified in Spain as well as many others parts of the world (e.g. Italy, Austria, Argentina, Colombia, Canada and The Netherlands). A research program has been initiated in Spain (http://tierra.rediris.es/bloquesdehielo) to accomplish the following: a) confirm the atmospheric nature of the ice blocks (12-14), with some of them of up to 18 kg in weight, b) to obtain an updated systematic database incorporating similar events around the world (15), c) to have the samples well preserved in freezer rooms for their study, d) to promote the creation of an international working group that can communicate through an electronic network, and e) to inform the public about the importance of reporting the occurrence of new falls.

The study of the textural, hydrochemical and isotopic characteristics of the ice blocks indicate that they mostly share the features which have been observed in large atmospheric hailstones, and that they were formed from water of variable mineralization. d18O and dD (V-SMOW) of the samples fall within the Craig's Meteoric Water Line. Isotopic mapping of dD values in the ice blocks display: 1) significant general variations from -24.4‰ to -126.4‰, and b) specific variations of up to 25 dD within some individual blocks. Some unusual atmospheric conditions have been observed to be occurring during the times of the falls including tropopause folding, ozone depression, and wind shear. Additional mechanisms (i.e. extra ionization, external perturbation of the system, injection of ion concentration from aircraft condensation trails) are also being considered as possible contributors to the initial formation of the first "ice nuclei". The term "megacryometeors" is proposed here as the name of these anomalous atmospheric blocks of ice.

References: (1) N. V. Vasilyev http://www.galisteo.com/tunguska/docs/tmpt.html. (2) Whipple, F.J.W. (1930). The great Siberian meteor and the waves, seismic and aerial, which it produced. Royal Meteorological Society Quarterly Journal 56:287-304.

(3) Astapowitsch, I.S. (1934). Air waves caused by the fall of the meteorite on 30th June, 1908, in Central Siberia. Royal Meteorological Society Quarterly Journal 60:493-504.

(4) Chyba, Christopher F., Paul J. Thomas, and Kevin J. Zahnle (1993), The 1908 Tunguska Explosion: Atmospheric Disruption of a Stony Asteroid, Nature, 361, 40-44.

(5) Shuvalov, V.V. & Artemieva, N.A. (2002) Numerical modeling of Tunguska-like impacts. Planetary and Space Science 50, 181-192 (6) Jackson and Ryan, M. P. (1973) Was the Tunguska Event Due to a Black Hole?" Nature 245, 88-89.

(7) Crannel. J. (1975)Experiments to Measure the Anti-Matter Content of the Tunguska Meteorite." Nature 248, 396-398.

(8) Foot, R. (2001) The Mirror World Interpretation of the 1908 Tunguska Event and Other More Recent Events. Acta Physica Polonica B. Vol. 32, No. 10, 3133.

(9) Foot, R. & Yoon, T.L. (2002) Exotic meteoritic phenomena: The Tunguska event and anomalous low altitude fireballs -- manifestations of the mirror world? Astrophysics, abstract. astro-ph/0203152 http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/020315 (10) Ol'khovatov, A.Yu. (1991) O veroyatnoi roli seismotectonicheskikh protsessov v Tungusskom fenomene 1908 g. // Izvestiya AN SSSR, Fizika Zemli, N 7, p.105 (in Russ.).

(11) Ol'khovatov, A. Yu http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/ ... nguska.htm (12) Martínez-Frías,J., López-Vera,J., García, N., Delgado, A., García, R. & Montero, P. (2000) Hailstones fall from clear Spain skies" Geotimes, 45-6, 5-6.

(13) Martínez-Frías, J., Millán, M., García, N., López-Vera, F., Delgado, A., García, R., Rodríguez-Losada, J.A., Reyes, E., Martín Rubí, J.A. & Gómez-Coedo, A. (2001) Compositional heterogeneity of hailstones: Atmospheric conditions and possible environmental implications AMBIO 30-7: 452-455.

(14) Santoyo, E., García, R. Martínez-Frías, J. López-Vera, F. & Verma, S. P. (2002) Capillary Electrophoretic Analysis of Inorganic Anions in Atmospheric Hailstone Samples. Journal Chromatography A (in press).

(15) Meaden, G.T. (1977). The giant ice meteor mystery. J. Met. 2, 137-141.

(16) Corliss, W.R. (1983). Ice falls or hydrometeors. In: Tornados, Dark Days, Anomalous Precipitation and Related Weather Phenomena. A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies. The Sourcebook Project. P.O. Box 107, Glen Arm, MD 21057, pp. 40-44.

Date received: April 30, 2002

http://tierra.rediris.es/megacryometeors/brunel.html
 
Wednesday, 01/04/06

Ice falls from sky, puts hole in barn roof

By Nicole Young
Staff Writer

A Robertson County man returned home from work to find that a five-pound chunk of ice had fallen from the sky and crashed through the roof of his barn last week.

Johnny Marlin of 4330 Armstrong Road near the Owens Chapel community said his two farmhands, who had been working in the barn at the time the ice crashed through, alerted him to the incident Wednesday around 5 p.m.

“I got home from work and the two farmhands told me that the barn had exploded,” Marlin remembers. “One of the men said it sounded like a cannon went off in there.”

At first Marlin said he was unsure what had happened inside the barn.

“I thought maybe a transformer had blown, but the lights were still on inside,” he said.

“Then I noticed the hole in the roof.”

Although there were reports of marble sized hail in White House Wednesday afternoon, no hail was reported in Marlin’s area.

So, where did the ice come from?

Marlin speculates that the giant chunk came from an airplane as it flew overhead.

“I’m just lucky it didn’t land on my head,” Marlin said.

No one was injured in the incident. Marlin is unsure about the cost of the damage to his barn at this time.

www.rctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A ... 40092/1304
 
Ice chunk from sky sets village aflutter

Kolkata | January 28, 2006 2:15:06 PM IST

A huge chunk of ice that apparently fell from the sky in a West Bengal village caused a flutter in the area even as weather experts dismissed such phenomenon as absurd.

Local reports here said the incident occurred Friday evening in Katnabil village of Burdwan district, about 100 km from here.

Within minutes, hundreds of villagers flocked to the playground where the chunk was lying. A local photographer who reached the spot at night said the ice had melted to a chunk of about five kilograms within hours.

"The jagged and melting piece is lying in a crater about a foot deep," photographer Rana Ghosh said.

Police station in-charge Sudipta Banerjee said he had sent a probe team.

Burdwan district council leader Uday Sarkar said he has asked people "to try and preserve some of the ice so it could be tested".

The weather section director at the Alipore Met office, G.C. Debnath, said: "It sounds absurd. The atmospheric condition is not favourable even for hail. This can't be a meteorological phenomenon."

------------
-Indo-Asian News Service

(IANS)

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showde ... at=Science
 
Woman's car hit by ice from sky

Woman's car hit by ice from sky

The ice ball hit a car parked outside Stephanie Cole's home
A woman is looking for answers after a football-sized lump of ice fell from the sky and smashed into her car.
It is believed the ice ball fell from an airplane, but so far no-one has taken responsibility of the accident.

It caused hundreds of pounds of damage to a car owned by Stephanie Cole of Great Glen in Leicestershire, which was parked outside her house.

She wants a explanation from Nottingham East Midlands Airport, whose flight path is above her home.

She said: "I would like my car put straight and someone is going to have to pay for this.

"It is scary that this could have hit a person," she said.

Ice-falls are reported 20 or 30 times a year on average in the UK, but there have not been any reports of serious injury.

They are usually caused by a small leak in an aircraft component. Drips of water form into ice when the aircraft is at high altitude.

As the plane descends and the air temperature rises, the ice can melt, break away and fall to earth.

source
 
Article Last Updated: 04/09/2006 6:43 AM PDT

Large ice slab drops on Oakland

Frozen two-foot chunk from the sky digs three-foot hole in Bushrod Park
By William Brand and Ian HoffmanSTAFF WRITERS


OAKLAND — Did it come from outer space? Was it a transport vehicle for illegal aliens of the extraterrestrial kind? The tail of a comet grabbed by gravity?

Jokes were flying Saturday morning after a block of solid ice, measuring more than two feet on a side, crashed to earth with a tremendous bang, digging a three-foot hole in the grass at Bushrod Park, 5800 Shattuck Ave.

But when the laughing stopped, an expert theorized it probably fell from the wheel well of a plane landing at Oakland or San Francisco International airports. It also could be an unexplained "ice fall," one expert said. Big balls of ice sometimes fall from the sky without any real explanation.

Wherever it came from, it's arrival was heart-stopping and dramatic.

Brooks and Judith Mencher said they were standing on their back porch on 59th Street near the park when they heard a sound like a very loud rocket. "It kind of went 'whoosh!'" Brooks Mencher said.

The impact hole looked like it was created by a hand grenade, said Oakland Police Sgt. Ron Lighten. "It knocked turf 20 feet away."

Lt. Charles Glass of the Oakland Fire Hazardous Materials Team said the ice was pure water. " It didn't come from a toilet on a plane or anything like that."

Glass said the ice that firefighters pulled from the hole was about the size of the hole, three by three feet and two and a half feet deep. It also broke a ceramic irrigation pipe at the bottom of the hole.

At Oakland International, a spokeswoman said she had no idea if a plane might have been going overhead at that moment. "We'll have to wait until Monday, when that information is available," she said.

Web sites that track commercial flights show a spike in arrivals at Oakland International at about the time, 10:05 a.m., that the ice ball put a hole in Bushrod Park. Two runway approaches for San Francisco International also go almost directly overhead.

An operations manager at the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles said he had never heard of such a thing.

"I've been here 15 years and what usually falls from planes is 'blue ice,' that's methylene glycol. They put it in airplane toilets. Sometimes there are leaks and it falls out," he said.

But Tony Hirsch, a Columbus, Ohio-based aviation expert, said ice falls of pure water are not uncommon: "Ice builds up on airplanes and falls off as they prepare to land."

But Hirsch said the airplane "would have to descend through what we call visible moisture, rain or clouds, for ice to build up." The skies were partly cloudy Saturday morning.

Hirsch said a large chunk of ice could build up on the vertical stabilizer or in a wheel well: "When they lower their landing gear, it falls off."

As bad as Bay Area weather has been, the National Weather Service said none of the storms has been violent enough to hatch a gigantic hailstone on its own. "There's nothing meteorological that would create a piece that big falling into Oakland," said weather service forecaster Diana Henderson.

Electrical engineer Richard Spalding thinks there must be another explanation. He tracks meteors as part of work on satellite instruments and became interested in balls of ice that smash down from time to time.

"Ice falls do happen fairly frequently," Spalding said. "Just about every year, there's a news item somewhere. I think it came from a natural process that we're ignorant of, where it can form at altitude and fall as a chunk," he said.

There's at least one recorded incident of ice from a plane hitting a house. It happened in 2004 in Kent, near Seattle. Homeowner Troy Halte said Saturday a chunk of ice made a basketball size hole in his roof and the ice landed in softball-size pieces on this daughter's bed.

"Fortunately, nobody was home," he said.

www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_3691061
 
Ice crashes through college gym

HEADACHE: No one is injured by the 2-foot chunk and no one knows yet where it came from.

10:00 PM PDT on Thursday, April 13, 2006

By DARRELL R. SANTSCHI
The Press-Enterprise

A 2-foot-long chunk of ice that looked like compacted snow but whistled like an artillery shell crashed through the roof of the Drayson Center at Loma Linda University on Thursday morning.

No one was injured when the ice hit sometime between 8:55 and 9:15 a.m. The ice broke into pieces in the lattice work above the floor of the unoccupied Opsahl Gymnasium.

Maintenance workers retrieved a chunk about twice the size of a man's head, double-bagged it and stuck it in a freezer to save for Federal Aviation Administration officials.

Rolland Crawford, Loma Linda Fire Department division chief, said firefighters are not certain of the origin of the opaque white ice. University spokeswoman Julie Smith said a building repairman saw an airplane flying overhead at the time.

FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said investigators will review radar records to identify planes in the area at the time of impact. That will take at least a week, Fergus said. But the color of the ice may mean authorities will never determine where it came from, he said.

Blue ice comes from an aircraft's galley or lavatory. The source of ice of other colors can be mysterious, he said. Sometimes rime forms on the fuselage and breaks off, but that ice tends to be only 2 or 3 inches thick.

He said there have been cases in which ice fell and there were no aircraft in the vicinity. That could be naturally forming gigantic hail, Fergus said. He said the FAA follows up in such cases, but it gets a lower priority than investigations involving injuries or deaths.

Crawford said a ladder truck and three firefighters initially were dispatched to the campus. A supervisor followed and finally, both Crawford and Fire Chief Mike Norris.

"Chief Norris and I said, 'We've got to see this.' "

Crawford said the ice penetrated the sheet metal roof of the Drayson Center, went through a coating of tar paper and plywood underneath, then through a layer of insulation and the ceiling of the gymnasium. Pieces of ice lodged in the metal latticework just below the ceiling but apparently did not reach the gym floor.

"There were people outside the building who heard it," he said. "They said it sounded like an artillery shell going through the air. It was a whistling, whooshing sound."

Smith said no one was in the gym at the time.

A similar incident occurred in Fontana in August 2005, when a chunk crashed through the roof of a home in the 14000 block of Westward Drive.

Staff Writer Chris Richard contributed to this report.

www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_ ... 4ff9d.html

More news and video:
http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_104065535.html

This is all causing Whitley Streiber concern as part of the Coming Global Superstorm (made into the Day After Tomorrow):

www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=5218
 
Falling ice perplexes scientists

Theories abound after 2 chunks land in state in a week

Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer

Saturday, April 15, 2006



The skies are raining big chunks of ice, and experts ranging from scientists to federal investigators are scrambling to learn what's going on.

For the second time in a week, California was the victim of an aerial, icy assault, the latest being early Thursday when a chunk of ice the size of a microwave oven plunged out of a cloudless sky into the San Bernardino County town of Loma Linda. The ice punched through the metal roof of a recreation center, leaving a hole up to 2 1/2 feet wide, then fragmented into opaque, brilliant white chunks, one as big as a bowling ball. No one was hurt.

Two tennis players were batting a ball around outside the Drayson Center at Loma Linda University on Thursday morning when they heard a strange sound, said Rolland Crawford, Loma Linda Fire Department division chief.

"They described it as the sound an artillery shell would make -- shoosh, shoosh,'' he said. "They looked up. They didn't see the ice, nor did they see a plane.''

A similar incident occurred last Saturday in Oakland, where a plunging ice ball plowed into a field at Bushrod Park on Shattuck Avenue and blasted out a crater up to 2 feet wide. Again, no one was hurt.

The simplest, least controversial hypothesis is that the ice was dropped from airplanes, but there's little direct support for that view. A few experts who study such phenomena have suggested that similar occurrences around the world owe more to exotic causes, perhaps even global warming.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the two latest cases under the theory that the ice fell from an aircraft, FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said Friday.

Such cases can be very tough to solve, he said.

In both cases, the ice was clear or whitish -- not bluish, as one would expect of ice that had leaked from an airplane's restroom, for instance.

The agency has traced blue-ice cases back to aircraft, but Fergus said that is extremely difficult to do. One of the many reasons is that wind speed and direction can vary at different altitudes and often change suddenly. As a result, the otherwise smooth trajectory of falling ice can be radically altered.

For this and other technical reasons, investigators can't always be sure whether a particular piece of ice fell from a particular airplane even after they've reconstructed the probable plane's flight path, Fergus said.

Legends about plunging ice go back for centuries. They didn't begin to receive serious scientific attention until a few years ago, however, when Spain and other countries were pelted by the mystery intruders.

Possible explanations range from the mundane to the bizarre.

One theory is that ice is somehow forming on the outside of aircraft, perhaps in areas that aren't protected by deicing equipment, said David Travis, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Last year, he and 11 others co-wrote an article on the ice-fall mystery in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry.

Lead author Jesus Martinez-Frias of the Planetary Geology Laboratory in Madrid and his colleagues have collected reports of 40 cases around the world since 1999 of puzzling falling ice, or "megacryometeors," as they call the strange objects.

Martinez-Frias hypothesizes that the ice forms in the upper atmosphere by a process similar to the formation of hail inside thunderstorms but without a thunderstorm.

Inside a thunderstorm, hail forms like this: Extremely violent vertical winds can repeatedly blow water vapor up and down, like clothes inside a washer. In this process, moisture rises to a high, cold altitude, where it freezes. Then its weight causes it to plunge back toward Earth -- until new winds blow it back to a high altitude, causing it to gain an additional layer of ice.

The process occurs over and over again until the object falls to Earth as a hailstone, sometimes as big as a baseball and occasionally bigger.

But how can ice fall from a cloudless sky? Martinez-Frias speculates that global warming is causing the lower part of the atmosphere -- the troposphere, where we live -- to expand and rise. This means that the tropopause, which is the so-called roof of the troposphere, is forced to a greater height, where it cools more than normal.

Thus, he suggests, the new, steeper temperature difference between warm and cold air in the upper atmosphere generates turbulent up-and-down winds that repeat the hail-formation process, without a thunderstorm.

Although he co-wrote the paper on megacryometeors with Martinez-Frias, Travis is leaning toward the aircraft theory for what happened in Oakland and Loma Linda. "I've talked to a lot of pilots who tell me there are places on airplanes where the deicing equipment doesn't cover," Travis said Friday.

Then there may be the conspiracy theorist who might suspect the ice is falling off the kinds of supersecret spy planes that the military tests in the Southern California and Nevada deserts. But spokesman John Haire of Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert said any such theorists are all wet: "We don't do test flights over Loma Linda or Oakland."

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file ... I9OUE1.DTL
 
Ice Blocks Fallin' on My Head

I'd believed that the real sea change in Science's accepting the reality of falling ice originating in regions more remote that airliner lavoratories began with the ice bombardments of Spain and Western Europe around five years ago.

But the following appeared in FORTEAN TIMES, September, 1997 (Issue 102), page eight:

"Icdebergs from Space.

"Giant chunks of ice plunging into Earth's atmosphere have been photographed by high-powered cameras on NASA's polar satellite. Dr. Louis A. Frank of the University of Iowa announced the discovery on 28 May [1997] to the American Geophysical Union in Baltimore. He estimates that the chunks are the size of a house and can weight 20-40 tonnes.

"The mini-comets do not pose a threat to life as they break up between 600 and 15,000 miles....above us - although the odd chunk of cometary ice does come down...."

The article continues that Frank's observations as far back as 1986 had been dismissed by his colleagues "n an instructive re-enactment of the denial of the existence of meteorites by the French Academy of Sciences in the 18th century," but that today (1997) even "Thomas Donahue of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, one of Frank's most vocal critics, now says: 'The observational evidence is overwhelming.'"

The very first observations along this line were made by one of Dr. Frank's students in 1982.
 
2-Foot Block Of Ice Falls From Sky Onto N.J. Lawn

POSTED: 8:16 am EDT May 22, 2006
UPDATED: 1:10 pm EDT May 22, 2006


BRIGANTINE, N.J. -- A large block of ice believed to have been discarded by an airplane fell thousands of feet onto the lawn of a Brigantine residence this weekend.

The ice cube, measured at about two feet all the way around, made a foot-deep crater when it came down Saturday.

The unidentified homeowner notified authorities, who believe the ice chunk fell from the holding tank of an airplane flying overhead.

Brigantine police sought help from the Federal Aviation Administration to identify which airplane the ice chunk fell from. But there were too many flights in the area at the time the ice fell to make that determination.

www.nbc10.com/news/9252381/detail.html

Falling ice lands in Brigantine

By ELAINE ROSE Staff Writer, (609) 272-7215

Published: Sunday, May 21, 2006
Updated: Sunday, May 21, 2006

BRIGANTINE — No, it wasn't a snowstorm in May, and not even hail, when a Shipmaster Drive resident saw a block of ice fall from the sky and land on his lawn Saturday evening, police said.

The giant ice cube, measuring about 2 feet around, fell from the sky at about 7:34 p.m. and made a foot-deep crater in the resident's lawn, Lt. Raymond Reganato said. No one was injured.

The resident called police, who surmised that the ice chunk fell from the holding tank of an airplane, Reganato said.

“They usually drop it over the ocean, but I guess they missed,” Reganato said.

Police called the Federal Aviation Administration in an attempt to identify the culprit aircraft, but there were too many flights in the area to make a determination, police said.

www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/ ... 9253c.html
 
Couple seeks to crack Brigantine ice mystery

By MICHAEL PRITCHARD Staff Writer, (609) 272-7256
Published: Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Updated: Tuesday, May 23, 2006

BRIGANTINE — It was a pretty typical Saturday evening for Dan and Jean Ciechanowski as they worked the barbecue and chatted with neighbors this past weekend.

Then it happened.

Dan Ciechanowski heard a noise that he described as the sound a missile makes and saw something moving across the sky at a 45-degree angle.

It smashed into a vacant lot next to his property with a crash that shook the foundation of his house.

That crash was pretty close to where Jean Ciechanowski was grilling. Though there is a fence between her property and the vacant yard, she too heard the missile-like sound and felt the impact.

In the end, the object — a large chunk of ice — had landed just a few feet away.

“First I heard the noise of it coming down,” she said. “Then there's this crash and it shook the ground all around me. It was a pretty scary thing to go through.”

In fact, the Ciechanowskis described the impact as surreal. What they found afterward was a one-foot-deep crater in the adjacent yard with a hunk of ice two feet around sitting in the middle.

The ice fell at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday. When investigated by city police, it was assumed that the ice had fallen from a plane. Police called the Federal Aviation Administration to see if any planes in the area had inadvertently dropped the ice from one of their holding tanks. Or it could be a form of “blue ice,” a euphemism used in the airline industry for ice that falls from leaking airplane lavatories.

There were too many planes in the area to find a culprit, police said, but Ciechanowski isn't so sure that the ice came from a plane.

“That was my first thought,” he said. “We are on an approach for Atlantic City International Airport. But my neighbor and I were out talking when it happened. We looked around and didn't see a single plane in the area.”

Ciechanowski did some quick Internet research and found some other problems with a blue ice theory. The ice in question was clear, did not have a foul odor and seemed to have some minerals in it.

“I'm not saying what it is,” Ciechanowski said. “But it doesn't fit what I was reading in the Internet. It made me think it could be something else, like a type of meteor.”

A spokesman for the FAA said that despite the lack of color and odor, the ice still could have come from a plane. The FAA intends to investigate the incident.

When they get to the site, they'll be able to see the ice first-hand. Ciechanowski kept a piece in the freezer. And he is handling it with care in case the blue ice theory holds up.

“It's in a freezer we don't use too much and it's in plastic,” he said.

For the Ciechanowskis, the mystery ice will provide for some interesting conversations this summer, but they are aware it could have been a lot worse.

“If this had hit something like our house it would have smashed right through it,” Dan Ciechanowski said. “If it hit somebody it would be terrible. We're very lucky that nobody got hurt by this thing. I'm still a little paranoid about planes flying overhead right now.”

www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/ ... 3782c.html
 
Today I saw a lump of slushy ice in the car park near where I work.
My first reaction was that it must have dropped from the wheel-arch of a car that had driven through ice and snow.

But then I thought 'It's Flaming June, and we haven't seen snow for months!' :shock:

So I thought then that it may have fallen from a plane. (No way to tell how much might have already melted.) There were no obvious dents to suggest that a large object had fallen from the sky.

My latest theory is that this was ice used by fishermen to preserve their catch. Now the car park is at the harbour's edge, and at high tide a good size fishing vessel could come alongside. But this is not usual procedure around here, and anyway the ice was not close to the water's edge.

So perhaps some fisherman rendezvoused with a pal to hand over some fish landed elsewhere?

I may never know... :(
 
I watched the Tom Bearden video about his discussions of Tesla posted on http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28064&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=90 and linking to the video at http://www.thelastoutpost.com/site/1233/default.aspx

He menioned that the 'Tesla Weapon' could work in two ways: it could produce an explosive release of energy, and also produce an explosive removal of energy from a volume where the beams interfere.

The thought occured that maybe it is the use of this 'weapon' where energy is removed that causes the megacryometeorite/ice falls. I don't know how wind updraughts could explain some of the heavier lumps of ice which fall from the sky.

Any thoughts on this?
:)

editttteed coz i cant speeelll
 
More on ice falls...

Pleas note that we are talking about more than 100 kg of ice! and that the number of events is apparently increasing.

We are worried that the apparent increase of megacryometeors events could be reflecting the multiplication of anomalous ice heterogeneous nucleation (and growth) processes linked with the fluctuations of tropoapause (and cyclonic vorticity). If Global Warming is fostering megacryometeors is something we are considering plaussible

from: http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=6381&start=41&posts=53

This document provides interesting reading http://tierra.rediris.es/publipapers/megacryometeors_JAC.pdf

8)
 
Article:

The Peculiar Phenomenon of Megacryometeors
www.damninteresting.com/?p=506

And more ice:

Jan 18, 2007 10:11 pm US/Eastern

Ice Chunk Crashes Through Delaware Co. Home

News Of The Strange Slideshow

(CBS 3) WOODLYN A Delaware County family narrowly avoided injury after a chunk of ice came crashing through their home Wednesday evening.

The incident happened shortly after 8:00 p.m. in the 1300 block of Donna Drive in Woodlyn.

Ed and Penny Myers said they were getting their 4-year-old daughter ready for bed when the icy object tore a 3-foot hole through the roof.

"There was this explosion in the room. At first I thought it was the T.V. shattering and glass, then I looked up and saw the hole in the ceiling and I was afraid the whole ceiling was going to collapse," said Penny.

Penny and her daughter were both hit by what they thought was glass, but they soon noticed icy debris on the ground. While there were no major injuries, Penny said she scraped her leg and her daughter Lindsay had a scrape on her stomach.

"A huge amount of ice shot to every corner of the room and it was just a complete disaster," said Ed Myers, adding, "It is just very unnerving to think that you were standing right next to that when it happened."

Myers added a plane will occasionally fly over their home, which is located a few miles from the end of a runway at the Philadelphia International Airport. The family believes the ice was either waste water or fell off of a plane’s landing gear.

On Thursday afternoon, officials from the FAA were at the home investigating the incident in hopes of determining the origin of the ice.

Ridley Township and Delaware County Council have been in an ongoing struggle with the FAA to kill a plan that would flare more takeoffs over Delaware County to alleviate congestion on the airport's runways.

"We are worried about debris coming off from the airlines, we worried about safety with the residents," said Delaware County Councilman Jack Whelan.

"We believe it would affect over 400,000 residents in Delaware County," said Whelan.

In the meantime, the FAA in continuing its investigation into the incident and attempting to determine where the ice came from.

© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc.

http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_017235251.html
 
Just up the road from me... the article stops short of mentioning that the site is more or less on the flightpath of leeds bradford airport, but that said, the ice looks a bit too white to be a 'piss javelin'!

Leeds ice mystery during summer heatwave

It was the hottest day of the year – yet there was ice on the lawn of a Leeds garden.
It came from out of the blue and hit a bird feeder before splintering.

Harry Pollard, 80, retired heating engineer, of Vesper Gate Mount, Kirkstall, was astonished and took a photograph.

"It was about lunchtime last Sunday," he said, "and I had just sat down. Suddenly, my washing line seemed to be blowing all over the place and I thought a bird had got trapped in it.

"But then I saw a piece of ice had hit it and it also seemed to have struck the bird feeder which was moving about.

"One piece of ice was buried in the ground and the rest was spread around the garden. It was about the size of a brick.

"My suspicion is that it fell from a high-flying plane. We get them flying overhead on the way to North America. It took two-and-a-half hours for it to melt in the baking heat."

The phenomenon of ice chunks from the sky is not unknown but is puzzling to scientists.

Big and small ice falls have occurred in China, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary, India and many parts of the United States – often in summer.

Some cases were recorded before aircraft were invented.

There is one recorded case of a block of ice weighing 440lbs falling to earth.

A climatologist at the University of Wisconsin said: "We're really baffled as to what is going on here."

Another scientist, in Madrid, claims the phenomenon is caused by global warming. He says every time it happens, the atmosphere at higher altitudes is turbulent and cold – and the cold creates the ice.

Whatever the cause, ice chunks can be dangerous. One hit the head of a magistrate in Ancona, Italy. And in southern Spain, a 70-year-old woman was knocked unconscious by one.

Still another crashed through a house in southern California and hit a boy on the head; and in Tampa Bay, Florida, an ice 'meteor' the size of a fridge destroyed a car in 2007.

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/n ... 4351788.jp
 
Could it have formed on a plane wing and broken off? Although the sunny summer weather suggests otherwise and you would have thought there would have been more ice if this were the case.
 
Ice falls from plane and hits man

A Bristol man has described how he was hit by a block of ice which fell from an aeroplane as he sat in his garden.

David Gammon lives under the flight path for Bristol International Airport.

He said: "We heard a plane going overhead and then a whistling sound and all of a sudden a piece of ice the size of a grapefruit fell on my thigh."

Mr Gammon, 76, is bruised but recovering. Bristol International said there was no proof the ice had fallen from a plane using the airport.

In a statement, the airport said: "Bristol International will provide all possible support to the Civil Aviation Authority in the investigation of this matter.

"However, variables such as aircraft height, wind strength, air temperature and other factors indicate that the ice could have come from any aircraft overflying within approximately five miles.

"This includes inbound transatlantic flights to Heathrow, flights to Germany and northern Europe and aircraft flying to or from Bristol International."

"I've been told that if it had hit my head, I would no longer be with you," Mr Gammon added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8139714.stm
 
rynner2 said:
Ice falls from plane and hits man

A Bristol man has described how he was hit by a block of ice which fell from an aeroplane as he sat in his garden.

David Gammon lives under the flight path for Bristol International Airport.

He said: "We heard a plane going overhead and then a whistling sound and all of a sudden a piece of ice the size of a grapefruit fell on my thigh."

Mr Gammon, 76, is bruised but recovering. Bristol International said there was no proof the ice had fallen from a plane using the airport.

In a statement, the airport said: "Bristol International will provide all possible support to the Civil Aviation Authority in the investigation of this matter.

"However, variables such as aircraft height, wind strength, air temperature and other factors indicate that the ice could have come from any aircraft overflying within approximately five miles.

"This includes inbound transatlantic flights to Heathrow, flights to Germany and northern Europe and aircraft flying to or from Bristol International."

"I've been told that if it had hit my head, I would no longer be with you," Mr Gammon added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8139714.stm

At least it wasn't blue ice (from the lavatory) :oops:
 
More chunks of ice hitting Bristol...

"Ice fall damages suburban house.

A lump of ice fell from the sky and severely damaged the roof and guttering of a house in Bristol.

Bob McClung, 29, of Downend, near the city, was at work when his neighbour rang and said there had been an "explosion" at his house.

The electronics engineer arrived home on Wednesday morning to find shards of ice in his front garden.

"I thought my neighbour was joking but when I got home I was shocked," he told BBC News. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8151778.stm
 
Plymouth man escapes plane ice windscreen crash
Page last updated at 18:12 GMT, Tuesday, 15 June 2010 19:12 UK

Mr Hendy and his daughter had just left the car when the ice block struck A lump of ice, believed to have fallen from a passing plane, has smashed through the windscreen of a car in Devon.

Kenneth Hendy's car was parked near his home in Mount Gould Avenue, Plymouth, when the incident happened.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said ice can gather on aircraft flying at altitude then drop off as the plane descends.

Mr Hendy said it was a "miracle" he was not killed.

The 71-year-old had just gone into his house after picking up his daughter when the block of ice - about the size of a rugby ball - crashed through the windscreen of his Volvo.

A neighbour who witnessed the incident said the noise of the ice hitting the car sounded like a clap of thunder.

"If I'd have been there a couple of seconds later it would have killed me," Mr Hendy told BBC News. :shock:

The CAA said although it was not a particularly common occurrence, it could happen if there has been a leak from a faulty seal or hose.

The leaking fluid will then freeze at altitude, then thaw and fall from the fuselage as the plane descends into warmer air.

Most reports of ice fall come from people who live under the approach paths to major airports.

All ice falls should be reported to the CAA, but a spokesperson said it was rare for the authority to be able to link it back to a specific aircraft.

She said the advice is not to handle the ice as it could contain hydraulic fluid.

Last July a man from Bristol was sitting in his garden when a lump of ice the size of a grapefruit fell from the sky and struck him on the leg.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/10323867.stm
 
Ice block from aircraft smashes into home in Chichester
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-10727594

The ice block left a large hole in the ceiling of the bedroom

A huge block of ice believed to have fallen from an aircraft crashed through the roof of a property in West Sussex as the homeowners slept.

Vince Foote and his wife were in bed when the ice smashed a 2ft (0.6m) hole in the roof at Summerdale Court, Chichester, just before 0200 BST.

Tiles and debris were strewn 30ft (9.1m) as the massive block landed in the couple's spare bedroom.

Mr Foote said they were in a state of shock at what had happened.

He said: "I thought at first it was thunder and I got up to investigate.

"I tried to open the spare bedroom door and it wouldn't move.

"When I forced it open I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

It is a such a freak accident, but it could have been so much worse”

End Quote Vince Foote Homeowner

"There was an enormous hole in both the roof and bedroom ceiling and there were great chunks of ice everywhere."

He said he felt like they had had a lucky escape and that the room was often used by their grandchildren which was a "terrifying thought".

He added: "It is a such a freak accident, but it could have been so much worse."

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said a build-up of ice usually occurred in the seals of the exterior pipes where water is pumped into the aircraft.

Water seeps out and ice begins to form at high altitude and continues to grow until the plane descends into warmer air.

He said it was rare for chunks to fall as they normally dissipate into the atmosphere and added there were only about 30 such incidents reported each year.

West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said it was one of the strangest incidents they had been called to.
 
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