As I was headed ot bed last night, the last piece of news I saw coming across theinternet, was that an enormous fireball was seen over the UK, mostly Ireland. Twitte rlit up with it and no one was quite sure what it was. Man-made space debris was suspected, but it was also possible that it was debris from a natural astronomical event, too. I’d posted the first news article about it, but there were not too many facts, just a reporting that it had happened:
From Universe Today-
Fireball Meteor or Re-Entering Satellite? “Something” Broke Up Over the UK on Friday
“Twitter is all abuzz with sightings of a huge fireball meteor that streaked across the skies Friday night at approximately 22:00 UTC. There are reports from Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Central England.”
“I’m going to link a bunch of videos so you can check out the event from multiple angles, but I want to make a completely unscientific judgement: it kind of looks like a re-entering spacecraft. Take a look at what the Jules Verne spacecraft looked like when it came back into the Earth’s atmosphere. See how it broke up into all those pieces? And don’t let anyone fool you with this picture. It was taken about 3 years ago in the Netherlands. Phil made a similar observation, but he’s still on the fence. We’ll have to wait for someone official to tell us what it was. Did you see it? Did you get a video? I’ll give you an update as soon as I know anything else.”
more at link, plus videos and photos
Then I went to bed and hope that the issue would have more facts surrounding it this morning. I found this article I’ve posted below. It doesn’t answer the questions as to what it was, but it does speak to the unusualness of the event and its magnitude:
Freak fireball lights up Irish skies
“A massive fireball was seen right across Ireland last night which may be “one of the best ever seen” in Europe and was a “huge event”, according to Astronomy Ireland. The trail of fragments passed across the sky at about 10.55pm with sightings reported from Dublin, to Donegal, Cork, Sligo, Carlow, Longford, Antrim and across the UK and as far as the Netherlands. It was “very unusual to see it in multiple countries,” David Moore of Astronomy Ireland said. “I’ve never seen one fragmented like that and streaked across sky,” he said. The fireball exploded into fragments, passed below the plough and all the way to the horizon. Mr Moore said the cause of the fireball was not yet clear. “It’s a piece of space debris, but whether it’s manmade or natural is not known,” he said. He said it was too slow for natural debris and was going the wrong direction for manmade debris. “It’s probably a space rock that has skidded across the atmosphere”. Witnesses described a trail of seven to 12 fireballs in a straight line across the sky. No sound was to be heard either by witnesses in the city or the countryside.”
Fireballs (meteors, bolides, meteorites) are not unusual. The fact that one was seen, by itself, is not an indicator of the end times. But notice the language in the article.
–massive
–best ever (there’s that superlative language again)
–huge
–unusual
–never before seen
–unknown
The signs and warnings and events the Lord is sending are a process. He chose the process of childbirth as the metaphor. Like the plagues He sent to Pharaoh that increased in intensity and impact, so are the signs of the end times. We have been in the end times since Jesus ascended in a cloud, and will end when He returns in like manner. However, the end of the end times, like the end of pregnancy, is more uncomfortable as each day goes on, and when the water breaks and childbirth actually begins, it gets painful and bloody real fast. My opinion is that the rapture will be like the water breaking.
The signs that He sends during the end time swell in an upsurge from a natural occurrence to an unnatural occurrence over the course of the process. By ‘natural’ I mean either able to be withstood or able to be explained in man’s thinking and philosophy or science. Because all the events, weather, and earth happenings are all from God, technically nothing is “natural.” Anyway, more and more frequently these days we encounter an event which science cannot explain, which are out of bounds of normal thresholds of rationality or pattern, and are increasingly unable to be withstood. In other words, the pain factor is increasing while at the same time the ability to explain the pain is absent.
Keep your eyes open for superlative language in news reports. A superlative is “Of the highest order, quality, or degree; surpassing or superior to all others.” Each day we read something happened that was the worst ever, most daring, strangest, biggest, highest, …until the next day when something happens and that event becomes the worst ever, most daring, strangest, biggest, highest … Every day the news tops itself.
Was this the most unusual fireball ever? Breaking into the most pieces? Displaying the most colors? Being the most visible across the most countries? Maybe. Until the next one comes along. And because it is the end of the end times, we won’t have long to wait until this fireball is surpassed in all aspects by another.
the-end-time.org 