on 7-18-09 i witnessed an amazing meteor shower, or not shower.  The 200 or so meteors we saw came in from multiple directions and some of them where just plain scary to behold,  there where about six of them that left huge smoke trails through the sky and on of those skipped twice through the atmosphere from one horizon to the other and left impressive smoke trails the entire way,  i have only seen smoke trails in movies and seeing them in real life was quite a amazing sight.  I am not sure what the event was or why we witnessed so many or why we saw some that where big enough and low enough to leave the smoke trails.  the smoke trails where only visible for ten or 15 seconds after the strike and then i think they cooled and dispersed a tad and just faded from view.  but in all i saw enough of that for a life time cause some of the trails where big enough to make me wonder just what would happen if they touched down.  By the way i was only 200 ft above sea level in the town of Shelton WA.  Light pollution was minimal and mostly on the horizons, i imagine in the mountains it would have been grand to watch.  Id love to know if anyone could name the event or if sounds more like a regular occurance, I took my cabin of kids out to the field through out the week and they saw a few meteors too and started asking all sorts of questions which i would like to answer at next years camp.

 There's about four annual meteor showers that peak between late July to mid-August, with event periods that can extend weeks on either side of the peak date.  Here are the events, peak dates, number of meteors/hour and periods for this time of year.

Shower               Date                Rate                    Duration

Capricornids         July 24              08 per hour          30 days

Delta Aquarids      July 29              20 per hour          30 days

Iota Aquarids        August 6            10 per hour          20 days

Perseids              August 12           90 per hour          25 days

 Maybe this cowboy who saw 200 meteors on the night of 18 July will come back and give us a little more information.

Sounds to me like they weren't the only thing smoking.

How long did this go on?  Sounds more like space junk returning to Earth rather than an actual meteor shower. 

I don't know about the smoke thing.  Once back in the early 80s or late 70s a group of us watched a spectacular meteor shower that had very slow and bright meteors that left trails across the sky lasting for up to a minute. In all we saw about 40 of these in two hours. There was a radiant point to the northeast though and not a random placement, hence my leaning towards man-made crud returning from low earth orbit at a slow pace.

It would be interesting if anyone else in the northwest saw any of these things.

L

Can't confirm your experience but I can give witness testimony to " pops and trails."  Several years ago in N.W. Okla. while waiting for my hunting buddy to show up for early morning deer hunt I was standing in front yard.  I was just staring at the dark sky and saw an incredibly bright flash accompanied by what I would compare to a small sonic boom.  I swear the light briefly lit the entire sky.  The smoke trail continued across sky to horizon from inception point and lasted for maybe a full minute. A different friend said he witnessed this too.  It was a sight to behold and I have seen few others,all of which where lesser magnitude.  Later in the day our local radio station reported on it due to the listener call-ins. Don't know if this was meteor or space junk.

i`ve seen two meteores hit he ground. once when i was about 12yrs riding with my father down a gravel rd. on a fishing trip early morn. some stars still out. sky turning,`did you see that dad!?`

`yup`,,,guess he was think`n about the small mouth `bass`more than the brite flash of light from the horizon behind the mountains of the snake river valley of oregon/idaho brownly res.

the other was about ten yrs ago.  bowhunting for elk, eastern oregon. warming ourselves next to the fire.,,,,clear night ,brilliant stars,great hunting storys,,,till,,,A BRIGHT! steak of light hurdled across the sky,  lighting the ground and every thing about us like daylight!,,,,the most brilliant flash of light

iv`e ever wittnessed appeared to stike the earth just beyound the nearby mountains with a thunderous roar of impact. the light was like a flash from a photo cell leaving us blinded for the moment, only to scurry to my `rig` to lay a map out on the hood with our flashlights, try`n to figure out some kind of direction this THING had gone.

seen `two` myself.

 

johnm:

 Maybe this cowboy who saw 200 meteors on the night of 18 July will come back and give us a little more information.

Sounds to me like they weren't the only thing smoking.

LOL