Let's call this the "fireball next time": yesterday, television footage of a fireball over the Midwest caused a sensation because of its spectacular luminosity. There was no damage, and fireballs come from time to time, everywhere; but for those of a prophetic disposition, they are among the signs looked upon as harbingers.

This meteor was unusual in how much of the atmosphere it lit, seen over the northern sky moving from west to east by residents in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio.

"Well before it reached the horizon, it broke up into smaller pieces and was lost from sight," the National Weather Service in Wisconsin said. "Several reports of a prolonged sonic boom were received from areas north of Highway 20, along with shaking of homes."

There are always fireballs but this was unusual in its prominence and comes at a time when bizarre weather, freakish storms, climate swerves, and volcanoes -- see Iceland -- are also in the mix (the ash from one causing flights in England to be cancelled the same day), and that can begin to bring us toward significance. Did we forget to mention the almost daily rumbling of earthquakes (on Wednesday one in China injured 9,000, and the shaking of southern California before that: so far this year, more quakes over magnitude-four in that region than in any other year of this decade).

The prospect of something from the sky -- whether asteroid or comet -- is something that has been anticipated in many different prophetic scenarios. And granted: a small fireball can be the precursor of a larger one.

Pieces of space rock often move in swarms or "trains" that arrive at different junctures.

There are scientists who believe that asteroid events caused major historical effects, in conjunction with other natural disasters. Large shooting stars were seen in China during the sixth century and in 532 those in the Mediterranean reported a great meteor shower. At the same time, quakes rocked the imperial city of Constantinople and 250,000 died when a tremor and the blaze it caused -- a scorching, fire-raining blaze -- leveled Antioch. In Rome "the sun gave forth its light without brightness like the moon" from 535 to 536 A.D., according to a scribe named Procopius. From Sweden to Chile something occurred that all but stopped tree growth, and there were savage storms. In Britain hundreds died in an awful storm in A.D. 548 and hail like "pullet's eggs" (a chicken's) fell in Scotland two years later.

Around 2300 B.C. a cosmic event may have occurred that left melted spherule in northern Syria (and may have altered the global climate).

This is all detailed in Sent To Earth. There had been signs of great meteors in 1000 B.C., at the end of the Roman era, and in the Middle Ages before plague. In New Zealand the natives reported fire falling from the sky, in America an object allegedly fell in the Bald Mountains (at the Tennessee-North Carolina border), and in England a monk named Gervase of Canterbury reported that in 1178 "on the Sunday before the Feast of St. John the Baptist after sunset when the moon had first become visible a marvelous phenomenon was witnessed by some five or more men who were sitting there facing the moon. Now there was a bright new moon, and as usual in that phase its horns were tilted toward the east; and suddenly the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals, and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the moon which was below writhed, as it were, in anxiety, and, to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw in with their own eyes, the moon throbbed like a wounded snake."

Scientists have no idea how many asteroids and comets are out there. They do know there are thousands between the sun and Jupiter, and millions beyond. A space rock the size of a couple football fields and arriving at eight times the speed of a bullet would create a crater at the bottom of the Atlantic (and cause a global disruption of photosynthesis: agriculture, along with tsunamis). There is a former comet between us and the sun that has been breaking into increasingly smaller pieces for centuries.

And so we pay attention, at the same time recognizing that the ash from a volcano (no one knows how many are on the ocean floor, nor when the ones we can see will erupt) could cause similar effects. A volcano on Thera in the Mediterranean once erupted with forty times the power of Mount St. Helens, causing total darkness for 130 miles for three days. In 1883 a huge volcano in Indonesia erupted with such force that it was heard 2,900 miles away (sending a glow seen as far away as Connecticut).

Five centuries after Thera, mysterious natural events again erupted. There were extreme temperatures, exceptional rain, and floods. There was a violent increase in the volume of rivers. On the Hungarian Plain a vast area of low-lying land went under water. "From many other sources of information it is obvious that these events were sudden and occurred worldwide," said two Swedish researchers, Lars Franzen and Thomas B. Larsson, who studied this period and found deposits indicating a severe flooding catastrophe around 1000 B.C.

In one 50-year period, from 1225 B.C. to 1175 B.C., at least 47 cities around the Mediterranean fell to earthquakes, with substantial destruction in Greece and Turkey. In Israel, where Solomon bowed before strange gods (and where children were sacrificed to a god called Molech), huge marble pillars were knocked on their sides and men buried beneath them. Some believe it may even have been one massive quake of earth-rattling proportion. "There were truly major events," said Amos Nur, a geophysicist at Stanford University. "Whether it's a global storm or a regional storm needs to be sorted out." So severe were the tremors that Nur and others believe they may have led to the collapse of east Mediterranean civilizations. "

These kinds of events are suspected of being in "secrets" visionaries claim to harbor. As for the alleged prophets who circulate predictions publicly, the latest or at least a very recent word from Pedro Regis in Brazil (a reputed visionary who has had several impressive "hits," along with question marks) is that "the inhabitants of the earth's wealth will experience heavy cross. The earth is moved and the death will be present. The eagle (U.S.) will drink the bitter cup of pain. In the west, the Pacific region will hear cries and lamentations. Bend your knees in prayer. Who is with the Lord will never experience defeat."

[resources: Sent To Earth]

[Maryland-D.C.-Virginia retreat and Mass, May 8]

[We urge all to pray and fast extensively before seeing any healer, deliverance priest, or mystic, especially one who lays on hands]

[See also: Signs: massive fireball and Ash from volcano disrupts flights]

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