A Norwegian skydiver almost had a close encounter of the deadly kind after a meteorite went hurtling by him in mid-air while he plummeted to earth — and it was all caught on video in what geologists called a world-first occurrence.
Anders Helstrup was the lucky skydiver who just being pulverized by the chuck of space rock as it flew past him at 300mph after he jumped from a plane over Hedmark, south east Norway.
“I got the feeling that there was something, but I didn’t register what was happening,” Helstrup told NRK.no, Norway’s largest media outlet.
Luckily, Helstrup had recorded the jump on a helmet-mounted camera. Playback revealed very clearly that something did happen and how close a call it was.
"When we stopped the film, we could clearly see something that looked like a stone. At first it crossed my mind that it had been packed into a parachute, but it’s simply too big for that," he said.
Helstrup was with with several other members of the Oslo Parachute Club when he made the skydive after taking off from the nearby Østre Æra Airport.
Experts are convinced it was a meteorite in "dark flight," that portion of its descent after it ceases glowing. If so, it would be the very first time that this has been witnessed and recorded on video.
Skeptics. Let the theories begin.
