By Scott Corrales
Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology
UFO Digest Latin America Correspondent
Source: INFOBAE and Martha Núñez
Date: 26 September 2011
** Authorities detain the man who “saw” the comet and concentrate their investigation on the gas cylinders **
The young man who disseminated a photo of the luminous object that allegedly fell on the community of Esteban Echeverria has been detained for making a false statement. Researchers have now concentrated their investigations on a gas cylinder that was “jury-rigged” to an oven, according to Radio 10.
The causes of the fatal explosion in the community of Esteban Echeverria in early morning hours are becoming clearer. Today at noon, a young man who claimed having seen “a fireball” falling from the sky acknowledged that had been lying. This is the same person who disseminated the image showing an orange object in free-fall.
Authorities in charge of the investigation decided to detain the man for making a false statement and have concentrated their research on the tanks found in one of the homes. Police confiscated a 45 kg cylinder connected in a clandestine manner to a pizza oven. Preliminary investigation suggests that this connection was the source of the leak that caused the tragedy in the province of Buenos Aires.
Also read: Possible Meteorite Strike Kills One; Destroys Homes in Argentina
This conclusion, however, does not account for sightings made by distant onlookers and comments made on INFOBAE that "car ignitions would not start in the wake of the explosion."
Argentina: Meteor Incident Becomes News Worldwide
The report of a death and injuries related to the impact of an alleged meteor in the Argentinean community of Esteban Echevarria has already made headlines around the world. Spain's El Mundo newspaper has reprinted the original information with some interesting follow-ups presented here:
[...} Ricardo Casal, Minister of Justice and Safety for Buenos Aires, acknowledged that "hypotheses now range from an explosion to something strange. Nothing is being discarded. We must analyze," noted the minister, underscoring that there was no explosion of the gas cylinders in the destroyed homes.
A local resident distributed a photo in which a red light can be seen against the early morning sky. "The mattress on which I slept jumped off the ground, the ceiling joists twisted and all of the windows in my home blew out. When I went out to the street, there was fire falling from above, setting fire to a post some 20 meters away," stated another resident of the 9 de Abril neighborhood.
"My daughter sleeps in the front room, and she told me that upon opening the window, since she smelled an odor like gunpowder, she saw fireballs dropping from the sky, and that's when she saw the explosion that struck my son-in-law in the leg," added the man.
Another female resident living some 200 meters away from the site, claims having heard "a whistling sound, and seconds later came the explosion that made everything shake. When I went outside to look, I saw fire descending from above, something blue. It wasn't the normal color of a regular fire, it was all blue fire."
Jorge Coghlan, director of the Santa Fe Astronomical Observatory, says "there are lightning bolts that manifests themselves in such a way." Faced with the hypothesis of a meteor strike, the expert explained that "meteors, upon entering the earth's atmosphere, begin disintegrating, creating a tube of radiation that breaks against the ground."
Some of the theories surrounding the unusual event in Argentina invoke "fragments of comet Elenin" as one of the possible answers to the mystery, owing to the fact that no impact crater has been found.
