December 17, 2009
If you happened to slip the word "missile" into your Web search for details about Wednesday's earthquake near Auburn, perhaps you came upon a tale of an intercepted Russian cruise missile, trained on Offutt Air Force Base, that exploded in the Nebraska sky at roughly the same time the ground began to shake.
Perhaps you noticed the 742-word story at www.whatdoesitmean.com quoted a Nebraska State Patrol trooper, Jerry Chab, who reportedly saw a fireball in the sky -- a fireball also seen from Oklahoma to Missouri -- at, coincidentally, the same time as the earthquake.
"Other reports from Nebraska further confirm Officer Chab's description of the downing of this nuclear armed cruise missile with the United States Geological Service," the whatdoesitmean.com story reads.
So, is the story a hoax? A sliver of insight into a diabolical cover-up? A little of this and a little of that?
This much is certain: Chab is a real Nebraska trooper, said spokeswoman Deb Collins.
He's also an amateur astronomer with a night job that takes him into the countryside, Collins said.
At about 9 p.m. Wednesday -- the earthquake was reported at 8:53 p.m., centered just north-northwest of Auburn -- he was in his cruiser west of Table Rock at the intersection of Nebraska Highways 4 and 50.
As windows rattled about 30 miles north-northeast of him, Chab saw a spectacle in the sky.
Chab e-mailed his observations to spaceweather.com, said Tony Phillips, the site operator.
"It flashed for approximately two seconds and was followed by sonic booms and ground shaking, which prompted many calls by the public to law enforcement in a three-county wide area," Chab was quoted as saying.
"If the earthquake is confirmed, as it appears to be, I think we have the most cosmic of coincidences: a large fireball around the same time of an earthquake," Chab told spaceweather. "I'm simply amazed."
Chab had the day off Thursday and declined interviews through Collins.
But he talked to Collins to set the record straight -- including the fact he never mentioned anything about a cruise missile. (Neither did spaceweather.com.)
But some Web sites don't particularly care. The quotes were referenced in the whatdoesitmean.com story about missiles and particle beams.
And just like that, the minor earthquake near Auburn became something of a far greater, or at least far stranger, magnitude.
