David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • James Mason

    Now film-makers and video game designers know how to accurately portray this occurence.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gus-Mueller/1126894782 Gus Mueller

    if it weren’t for all those dash-mounted cameras in Russia, it would be much less of a story.

    • xzzy

      No, it’d still be a story. Events like this are rare enough that everyone would be chattering about it. Obviously it’s easier to gawk  when there’s dozens of angles to choose from, but that’s really just icing on the cake.

      To be fair, scientists are probably in the process of creaming themselves because of those dash cams. They provide an unprecedented quantity of data to study, and I’m sure they’re going to spend years analyzing it.

      • terrycarroll

        No, you disagreed with Gus, then restated what he said as though he’d never said it.

  • http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist

    Spider rain, NK nuke testing, rogue cop lynching on live television, meteorite, etc. It’s been a hell of a week.

  • Cowicide

    It appears that fragments have hit the ground and caused damage to buildings?  Or maybe the massive shockwave itself did this?

    http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fchelyabinsk.ru%2Ftext%2Fnews%2F621775.html

    • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

       http://englishrussia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/jbOCUI-wUFY.jpg

      seems like a clean cut and everything around it is sort of OK. If it was knocked down by shockwave it would have been a lot more damage and in a wider circular area.

      • Cowicide

        Yeah, I do have to wonder, because now reports are coming in of fragments hitting the ground.  In this case below, a lake.

        • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

           the damn thing exploded mid air, so there may be a hundred fragments of this thing.

          • Cowicide

            That damn thing!

  • timquinn

    It was not any sort of alien craft. I repeat, it was not any sort of alien craft.

  • Vnend

    Why is the BBC and half of the other outlets calling this a ‘meteor shower’?  It is a meteor, not a bunch of them. I’ve been trying to figure that one out since I saw the BBC’s tweets about it this morning.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Why is the BBC and half of the other outlets calling this a ‘meteor shower’?

      Does Maggie have to do another post about the lack of science literacy in journalism? The BBC just had a breathless article the other day about lightning striking St. Peter’s after the Pope resigned.

  • bcsizemo

    I’m more impressed with how casual everyone seems about it.  They barely slow down, in America that would have caused grid lock for 20 miles in all directions just from the rubbernecking…

    • http://twitter.com/AmberCami Amber

      I know and none of the people in the cars where screaming. I know Russians have a reputation for being stoic in the face of terror, but seriously, that was some Armageddon stuff happening right there. I would have been screaming my fool head off and careening into parked cars and pedestrians the moment that thing appeared at the top of my windshield.

      • bkad

        I don’t know. First of all, it’s over pretty quickly. Second, what are you going to do about it? It’s like driving past a burning building or a car accident on the way to work. Assuming the fire trucks are there, there’s nothing to do but put it out of your mind and keep driving (even if the first thing you do at work is look it up on the net).

        • http://twitter.com/AmberCami Amber

          Yeah but I’ve seen car accident and fires before, I know those things usually get taken care of by the proper authorities. I have never in my life witness what happened in the sky there. If that was happening in real time right before my eyes while I was driving, I’m telling you hand-to-god there would be screaming and at least $50K in property damage. 

          • Velocirapt42

            Yes, thank you. My instincts would have been to brake the car, gawp, scream, curl into a ball, cover my head, and have my life flash before my eyes. 

  • Mecharius

    They must now be vigilant against unhealthy growths and colors outside the known spectrum!

    • http://twitter.com/chrnoble Chris Noble

       Also, meteor shit.

  • James Churchill

    Wow, Marty’s definitely putting some miles on the Delorean’s hover circuits…

  • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

    Once again Russia survives another apocalyptic scenario.

  • williamkaliner

    Why do some of these video clips have the wrong date – at one point 2012-12-31 appears which isn’t even the correct year.