Kamloops People Are Startled As Meteor Bursts and Fills Wide Area With Heat and Light

Kamloops — A physical phenomenon in the sky, accompanied by a brilliant light, noises and electrical influences, occurred at 8.33 Sunday night in this district, greatly alarming many persons. Some thought it was an explosion of an oil tank and telephone messages were received at provincial police headquarters. These enquiries were resumed in the Sentinel office yesterday morning and throughout the day news of the extraordinary occurrence trickled in from a wide area.

It is believed that a large meteor bore through space and finally disintegrated before reaching the earth some place south of the city. Strange to say, the temperature about that time, or earlier, seemed to rise and furnaces were allowed to die down and windows and doors were opened. At midnight the temperature was 60 and in the early morning the mercury did not get below 55. Parties who had been in the country and were driving back to town experienced unprecedented sensations. A. M. Tyrrell, George Bowers, Tom Clark, Arthur and Reginald Burton, to mention just a few, coming from different directions into the city, stopped their cars suddenly and jumped out, believing that their cars were on fire, Sandy Park and Cid Gerow, standing at the former's tire service station, saw the unusual light in the sky, declaring they witnessed the meteor break into pieces. A telephone operator, standing at the Canadian National station, saw the sky bathed in a peculiar light and felt an unusual sensation.

Another operator at Macdonald's ranch, this side of Stump Lake, heard an explosion like the loud detonation following a tank of oil being ignited and the rushing sound that one associates with phenomena in the sky. A citizen who was in the suburbs saw a blue light in the heavens which streaked downwards. Houses in the country were shaken. Even in Kamloops “strange noises” were heard at that time as if in the house.

Other places reporting on the meteor, some of which “felt the shock," were Rosehill, Campbell Range, Chase, Heffley Creek and North Kamloops.

Further accounts of eye-witnesses were received yesterday afternoon. A well-known local lady says: “I was standing near the Canadian National station when I saw a light that illuminated the whole heavens. It was descending so slowly that I thought it a rocket. It looked like an electric lamp of about 60 candlepower. When nearing the earth the noise could be heard. It exploded and virtually did not seem to be more than 25 feet away."

It will be interesting to learn if anything was seen of parts of the meteor. It was felt by those who experienced the passage of it that its final discharge must have taken place uncannily near the surface of the earth.