Hi

On the night of the 27th of January at 14:50 UT  we had a really bright
meteor-like event visible over a wide part of Western Australia. Using
naked eye reports (at around 2000/01/271450 UT) from the public we
have determined the object was probably travelling along a trajectory
starting a little west of south (crossing the coast east of Albany) and
finishing a little east of north.
Apparently the object disintegrated in "mid-air" over the sea
approximately north of Kunnunura (near the border with the Northern
Territory). It was seen by people spread out about 2,000km across the
state. This is very unusual for a meteor as it suggests a 'grazing'
trajectory. We believe it was the entry of the  Molniya 1-67, a Russian
communications satellite that was launched in 1986.
Its last published  data is:
Molniya 1-67                                     7938 x 87 km
1 16885U 86057A   00024.49418620  .02629495  48244-5  10000-3 0  7350
2 16885  62.1358 132.2173 3778027 263.7491  79.4965  8.19716859 99080

It also turned out that my  seismic station picked up a "noise" event
at "approximately" the same time of the sighting. Visual  Observations are
to the nearest minute.  It may be a coincidence, but maybe there is some
infra-sound to seismic shake or even some magnetic disturbance that
caused an effect in the seismometers.  The N-S (S-G) seismometer showed
the disturbance, E-W did not and the vertical showed it well. This leads me to
think is a magnet disturbance.

I thought this may be of interest, any comments?

I've posted to record to the P.S.N events. ( 000127a.au2 )

Arie



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