By Paul Seaburn
Watching the local weather report is generally just a boring activity between the news and sports, but viewers in Montreal will be paying closer attention to theirs after a glowing green UFO appeared while a reporter was being filmed outside.
The incident occurred on October 2 at 10:38 pm. Weather specialist Colette Provencher of the Montreal news agency TVA was delivering her report from a rooftop when a bright green glowing ball shot into view above her right shoulder. As it dropped in the sky, it turned orange before disappearing over the horizon. Provencher had no idea it happened and the program moved on to a report about a nearby fire. TVA later checked with the local police who stated the fire was not related to the green UFO.
Was this UFO a green fireball? The mystery and controversy surrounding green fireballs dates back to the late 1940s when they began to be spotted regularly in the southwestern United States, especially over – you guessed it – New Mexico. Meteor expert Lincoln La Paz investigated and concluded that they were not meteors but could be Russian spying devices or possibly alien spacecrafts. Enough reliable witnesses saw them that an investigation called Project Twinkle was implemented. It quickly determined that the green fireballs WERE meteors, a conclusion disputed by La Paz, and the project was dissolved after two years.
As for the Montreal green fireball, Sebastien Giguere, scientific and education coordinator for the Mont-Mégantic Observatory AstroLab, said it was a meteor that had been seen that night in many parts of the eastern U.S. and that the green color could just be an indication that it contained magnesium, which burns blue-green. This was disputed by Pierre Hudon, a meteor expert at McGill University, who said he had NO reports of meteors in the area that night and, if it were a meteor, it would have lit up the sky behind Provencher’s head.
Why such disagreement among meteor experts? Is there a secret military base in Montreal? Is the Russian government spying on Canada? Did an alien spacecraft misread its GPS directions to Area 51? This green fireball is a long way from being resolved.
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Montreal 'ball of light' mystery deepens
By Kate McKenna, CBC News
Experts say a mysterious ball of light over Montreal last night was not a meteor, raising questions about what that ball of light could be.
The website Lunar Meteorite Hunters reports sightings of the ball of light down the Eastern seaboard, including Quebec, Ontario, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Wyoming and Ohio.
But McGill's meteor expert, Pierre Hudon, says the ball of light could not have been a meteor because when a meteor flies through the sky, the entire sky lights up for several seconds. Hudon says he's received no reports of that happening.
"In Canada we have a network of cameras," said Hudon, "and we didn't receive any reports by camera this morning."
Hudon would not speculate on what the ball of light could be, saying "it could be anything."
The ball of light was captured over the shoulder of weather specialist Colette Provencher during a TVA broadcast at 10:38 p.m. ET Thursday night.