Last Friday, a meteorite allegedly slammed into a Canadian pond, breaking the ice and making a hole over a meter across.
Now, it appears this extraterrestrial attack was not the only one.
Another icehole was found on a frozen pond, this time in Iowa. Actually, there were three holes this time. The event happened around the same time as the Canadian hole was made, which is interesting. The picture looks very much like the other hit as well: a large hole, with streamers running out from it most likely due to ejected ice leaving tracks in the surrounding snow. There were no footprints leading up to it.
Now, a meteorite is not all that crazy; they do hit, and even a small one might leave a fair-sized hole. Iowa is a loooong way from Alberta, so I have a hard time thinking these are related (in that the same parent body broke up and the smaller meteorites left both holes). But it’s still interesting.
Remember, though, that not everything that falls from the heavens is a meteorite. Funny: a couple of centuries ago no one would have believed stones could fall from the sky. Nowadays they’re blamed for everything.
Tip o’ the Whipple Shield to… Fark! Duh!
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
How about outgassing from the pond bottom?
Methane bubbling up from decomposing material at a relatively high temperature collects and thins the ice at certain locations. These thins spots are then fractured by ice movement. A little spurt of gas spews debris around. The inverse to a puncture from above.
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
For any old “WKRP in Cincinnati” fans out there, maybe it’s the same reason that God hates trailer parks…?
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I am certain that the hole in the image was not caused by a meteorite. Ice holes like this are very common, in fact I’ve seen them often though not in midwinter but in early spring.
Read my comment on the previous entry how they are formed.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
1. A hoax or hoaxers: the second “hit” being a copycat version of the first;
2. Something really did fall onto the pond top: frozen blue ice from passing jet, e.g., which would likely not leave any readily-identifiable
evidence;
3. the least likely: meteorites actually did hit these two ponds so far apart, and are only now being noticed because of the colder weather due to the influence of global warming on winters overall…
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Or what about a lightning bolt?
The marks around this hole don’t look like ejecta, or things running into the hole.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
“He was a little feller, about this tall and pale blue skin. Looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Leroy! Quit smoking!’ then he sunk into the ice right there.”
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I’m starting to get mighty skeptical. As a person that lives in winterworld, I can tell you that holes appear in the ice pretty often and pretty easily.
Is it possible that these guys, seeing the news of the alberta hole, decided to check their pond and went “HEY LOOK I HAVE A HOLE TOO!!! Must be a silly meteorite again!!”?
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Fargin Iceholes!
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
As for WKRP:
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!!!”
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Another icehole was found on a frozen pond
But can anyone find an icehole with both hands and a map?
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Why, it’s pretty obvious that frozen ponds cause the intersection of chakra voodoo quantum lines.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Whenever I get the chance, I like breaking holes in pond ice with rocks from my sling. Good sized rock, throw for lots of altitude, and plunk it down 100-150 yards from shore. More if there’s a hill to throw from. Makes a very interesting noise when it goes through the ice.
“There were no footprints leading up to it.”
If I had a catapult or a trebuchet, you can bet your last wool sock I would do this. You’d have to search a long way back for the footprints, too.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Charles, we’re talking about 3 feet of ice in the case of the pond in Alberta. It would take more than a rock and sling to break it.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
It would be a massive surprise if bolides survived falls in Alberta and Iowa without any similar bolides in between. I would believe this only if a third hit turned up somewhere near a straight line drawn between the two ‘impact sites’.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
It’s the bugs! First, Iowa and Canada! Then, Buenos Aires! Kill ‘em all!
Would you like to know more?
Sorry… I can’t resist sometimes.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
In the winter, this is the closest that the aliens can get to making crop circles.
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
We have iceholes on our lake all the time. They usually sit in little tents, and make holes in the ice from which they capture torpid fish.
Even with no tracks, I can’t help but think that a different explanation would be better. I like Kullat Nunu’s idea as a cause.
I’m thinking that if a high-speed massive object, like a meteorite, hits the frozen surface of a lake, it will shatter the ice, so the cracks around it would look more like broken glass than like dendrites and axons. Come to think of it, I never have seen any ice-fishing huts near our dock, but these types of holes have shown up… O.o
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Someone apparently did dive into the pond on an Alberta Golf Course, and came out with, surprise…. golf balls.
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/080121/K012117AU.html
January 24th, 2008 at 4:58 am
I think it could’ve been the ‘Mythbusters’ team trying out their steam cannon again.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Where do these ice holes come from? I wonder if they come from bored corn-field pattern makers?
January 24th, 2008 at 10:13 am
How many folks have been kicked in the icehole?
January 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Why? …for the same reason God hates amputees.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
This is funny, in a way unless you live in Gypsumville, Manitoba: Alien Impact Poisons Canadian Town
January 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
quoting Michael Lonerganon
“we’re talking about 3 feet of ice”
I confess, I hadn’t chased through the links at the time I posted. I only see references to “half a meter” and “two feet”, but your point is taken. I’ve been able to punch two inches of ice with the sling.
“would take more than a rock and sling to break it.”
Which is why I posited the trebuchet. Allow me to amend my posting: “I would do this”->”I would *try* this.” (And if I failed, you’d still have this unexplained thirty pound rock sitting on the ice, a long way from any footprints.)