The Great Fairbanks Fireball, and Iditarod Bison Encounters – RedState

Spring is coming and with the return of the sun, we won’t see as many of the Northern Lights that Alaska is famous for. But that doesn’t mean the sky doesn’t bring us interesting things to look at.

The other day, folks in Fairbanks were enjoying a regular Tuesday morning. And then this is what happened: BOOM!

A bright, fiery ball of fire streaked across the Fairbanks sky Tuesday morning, drawing reports from residents who witnessed the event from their cars and homes.

The fireball – which streaked across the sky around 7:32 a.m. – was also filmed.

Brian Collyard was driving to work when a flash of light caught his attention on the left side of his vehicle.

He initially thought it was a car coming from the opposite direction, with its high beams on.

“There were literally – what I would say – hundreds to 1,000 different light trails coming out of this thing,” Collyard described. “It was absolutely phenomenal.

“It was the biggest explosive meteor I have ever seen in my life, and I will never forget it.”

Collyard said the flash illuminated the hillside north of Fairbanks, illuminating trees and a snow-covered field. He described the aftermath as a descending display of individual light trails that lasted for an extended period of time.

Here’s what people with high foreheads think:

Aaron Slonecker, director of the Anchorage Museum Planetarium and Discovery Center, said the event was considered a fireball.

“[A] A meteor is a piece of rock that’s moving through Earth’s atmosphere,” Slonecker said. “And we call it a fireball when it gets really bright and a little flaming like that.”

Slonecker said rocks traveling through the atmosphere at speeds ranging from 25,000 to 160,000 mph generate friction with the air that causes them to heat up, disintegrate and produce bright light.

They’re not exactly the usual lights in the sky that we see here on Grande Terre, but they’re interesting all the same.

Alaska Man Score: 5 explosive meteors.

Learn more: Alaska Man Monday: An unhappy fox; Plus it’s cold in Fairbanks

And then there’s this: This year’s Iditarod is underway, and one of the newbie mushers encountered an aggressive bison on the trail. Luckily, she found a new way to get back down.

When the gun in the hands of Jody Potts-Joseph, a 48-year-old rookie from Fairbanks, refused to shoot the wild bison her dog team encountered on the Iditarod Trail, she remembered the story her grandmother told her years ago.

It was these words that helped chase the large animal from the spot on the trail where the dog team had hit it.

Potts-Joseph, who is originally from Fairbanks but runs his kennel in Eagle Village near the Canadian border, left the Rohn checkpoint at 3:35 p.m. Tuesday by running near the back of the field.

There’s a lesson here: before you head out into the bush, make sure your handgun is in good working order. Especially if you encounter a large, aggressive creature, like we have many here in the Big Country.

“I found myself in a standoff and all I had was my Glock wasn’t firing,” she said in a cellphone video she took minutes after the encounter. “He was charging at me…and he kept charging but he wasn’t actually touching my dogs, but he was head down, pawing, and he would charge and then stop. He did that three or four times.

With her gun clicking but not firing, Potts-Joseph said she had to make a quick choice.

Grandparents are great. They lived a long time and had a lot to share. But this?

That’s when she remembered a story her grandmother told her years ago about encountering a bear in the Alaskan wilderness. His grandmother began speaking her indigenous language, addressing the bear in the words of the Hän Gwich’in people.

“[It] “Go away, have pity on us, leave us alone,” Potts-Joseph said. “And this bear just calmed down, turned around and left.”

On Tuesday afternoon, on the track, Potts-Joseph repeated those same words.

“It was my last resort,” she said. “I said that, and the buffalo turned and ran up that hill.

“That’s what they say, that the animals can understand our indigenous language and we weren’t harmed.”

Well, you can’t argue with the idea that she wasn’t hurt, her dogs weren’t hurt, and the bison wasn’t hurt. But what about understanding the native language? Well, many indigenous languages ​​are spoken in Alaska. How do bison, bears, etc. do they learn them all? Look, I love and admire the fact that people keep the indigenous traditions and languages ​​of this vast land alive, but if I’m facing a bison or a bear, I rely on a well-functioning firearm. But still:

Alaska Man Score: 5 moose nuggets, like all’s well that ends well, and no one was hurt.

Learn more: Alaska Man Monday: It’s Iditarod time again

Now I’m going to share some of my concerns by sharing them.

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