Sunday, February 17, 2013

Pope 112 - Peter the Roman - Pope Francis



Blue light angel
by Redd27 on Thu Feb 21, 2013 8:15 pm

Dreamt i was in a castle an angel wearing a cloak over head blue light shining around him he was looking out a window when i follow him out of room i see all of my dead relatives young looking they were having a meeting n talking about me my grandma was angry at me but she said im human n they needed to protect me when i asked from what they all vanished but i heard the angels soothing voice say spiritual warfare do not worry do not b afraid i am here he looked at me but his face was transparent blue light ????? Archangel michael???

Re: Blue light angel
by Gus Who on Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:51 am
Goes to secret meetings in spiritual matters as the Prophecies might be/ are coming to an end time ... Like...

"The Prophecy of the Popes (Latin: Prophetia Sancte Malachiae Archiepiscopi, de Summis Pontificibus) is a series of of 112 short, cryptic phrases in Latin which purport to predict theRoman Catholic popes (along with a few antipopes), beginning with Pope Celestine II. The alleged prophecies were first published by Benedictine monk Fra Arnold de Wyon in 1595. Wyon attributes the prophecies to Saint Malachy, a 12th‑century Irish Archbishop of Armagh.
Given the very accurate description of popes up to 1590 and lack of accuracy after that year, academic historians generally conclude that the alleged prophecies were fabricated, written shortly before they were published.
The current Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI, would correspond to the pope described in the penultimate prophecy. The list ends with a pope identified as "Peter the Roman", whose pontificate will allegedly bring the destruction of the city of Rome, the Catholic Church and usher the beginning of the Apocalypse.
The Roman Catholic Church denounces the alleged prophecies as both forgery, shoehorning and manipulated postdiction, noting the Biblical passage from the Parable of the Ten Virgins that no human nor angelic being knows the hour or time of the apocalypse. while the topic continues to be a part of papal hysteria and conspiracy theories, oftentimes fueled by Anti-Catholic sentiments."

So... This might go to Ephesians 6:10-20
New International Version (NIV)
The Armor of God in 

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
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I would like to point out to those who don't follow and study prophecy that this seems to be the last Pope who ... Will be known as Peter the Roman  ... if you can't see the signs or make the connection ... Here is something to think about. 

The new pope has to clean up "Home" (Rome) according to news  today  2/21/13 ...

      Also a class picture, and a big boy chair! 

FILE - This Sept. 15, 2006 file photo released by the Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano shows Pope Benedict XVI, at center, presiding a meeting with outgoing Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, left foreground in red, and the new Vatican's No. 2 official Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, right foreground in red, during a meeting at the Vatican. After 35 years under two "scholar'' popes who paid scant attention to the internal governance of the Catholic Church, a chorus is growing that the next pontiff must have a solid track record managing a complicated bureaucracy. Benedict was well aware of the problems, having spent nearly a quarter-century in the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But he never entered into the Vatican's political fray as a cardinal _ and as pope left it to his No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to do the job. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho, files)
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Associated Press/L'Osservatore Romano, ho, files - FILE - This Sept. 15, 2006 file photo released by the Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano shows Pope Benedict XVI, at center, presiding a meeting with …more 


Vatican feuds, fiefdoms, betrayals await next pope

VATICAN CITY (AP) — If evidence was ever needed that the next pope must urgently overhaul the powerful Vatican bureaucracy called the Curia, the scandal over Pope Benedict XVI's private papers is Exhibit A.
The pope's own butler stole sensitive internal letters to the pontiff and passed them off to a journalist, who then published them in a blockbuster book. The butler did it, he admitted himself, to expose the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican's frescoed halls that he believed was hidden from Benedict by those who were supposed to serve him.
And if that original sin weren't enough, the content of the leaks confirmed that the next pope has a very messy house to clean up. The letters and memos exposed petty wrangling, corruption and cronyism at the highest levels of the Catholic Church. The dirt ranged from the awarding of Vatican contracts to a plot, purportedly orchestrated by senior Vatican officials, to out a prominent Catholic newspaper editor as gay.
Ordinary Catholics might not think that dysfunction in the Apostolic Palace has any effect on their lives, but it does: The Curia makes decisions on everything from church closings to marriage annulments to the disciplining of pedophile priests. Papal politics plays into the prayers the faithful say at Mass since missal translations are decided by committee in Rome. Donations the faithful make each year for the pope are held by a Vatican bank whose lack of financial transparency fueled bitter internal debate.
And so after 35 years under two "scholar" popes who paid scant attention to the internal governance of the Catholic Church, a chorus is growing that the next pontiff must have a solid track record managing a complicated bureaucracy. Cardinals who will vote in next month's conclave are openly talking about the need for reform, particularly given the dysfunction exposed by the scandal.
"It has to be attended to," said Chicago Cardinal Francis George. With typical understatement, he called the leaks scandal "a novel event for us."
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a German who retired in 2010 as the head of the Vatican's ecumenical office, said the Curia must adapt itself to the 21st century.
"There needs to be more coordination between the offices, more collegiality and communication," he told Corriere della Sera. "Often the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing."
Sandro Magister, the Vatican analyst who most closely follows the comings, goings and internecine feuds of Vatican officials, said the "disaster" of governance began unfolding in the 1980s, in the early years of Pope John Paul II's pontificate.
"John Paul II was completely disinterested in the Curia; his vision was completely directed to the outside," Magister said in an interview. "He allowed a proliferation of feuds, small centers of power that fought among themselves with much ambition, careerism and betrayals."
"This accumulated and ruined it for the next pope," he said.
Benedict was well aware of the problems, having spent nearly a quarter-century in the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But he never entered into the Vatican's political fray as a cardinal — and as pope left it to his No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to do the job.
"Some of his choices were shown to be counterproductive," Magister said. "Cardinal Bertone didn't produce the results that Benedict XVI had hoped for."
Bertone himself became a lightning rod for division within the Curia. A canonist, he had no diplomatic experience coming into the job, and the main battle lines drawn in the Curia today come down to his loyalists and those still loyal to his predecessor Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Taken as a whole, the leaked documents seemed aimed at undermining Bertone.
To be fair, the Vatican under Benedict made great strides on some internal governance fronts: the pope insisted on greater financial transparency, and the Vatican passed a key European anti-money laundering test last summer. He insisted on a Vatican trial, open to journalists, for the butler who betrayed him. And as cardinal, after priestly sex abuse cases bounced for years among Vatican offices, the former Joseph Ratzinger took them over himself in 2001.
But some analysts speculate that the revelations from the leaks at the very least accelerated Benedict's decision to resign. In early 2012, he appointed three trusted cardinals to investigate beyond the criminal case involving his butler. They interviewed widely inside the Curia and out and delivered their final report in December. Its contents are sealed, though speculation is rife that the cardinals minced no words in revealing the true nature of the Curia.
Benedict's biographer, Peter Seewald, asked Benedict in August how badly the scandal had affected him. He replied that he was not falling into "desperation or world-weariness," yet admitted the leaks scandal "is simply incomprehensible to me," according to a recent article Seewald penned for the German magazine Focus.
The Holy See's bureaucracy is organized as any government, though it most closely resembles a medieval court — given that the pope is an absolute monarch, with full executive, legal and judicial powers.
There's a legal office, an economic affairs office and an office dedicated to the world's 400,000 priests. Three tribunals tend to ecclesiastical cases and a host of departments take up spiritual matters: making saints, keeping watch on doctrine and the newest office created by Benedict, spreading the faith.
John Paul's 1988 apostolic constitution "Pastor Bonus" sets out the competencies of the various congregations and councils, and they function more or less as independent fiefdoms, albeit in consultation with one another when the subject matter requires. In the end, though, the real power lies with two departments: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the secretariat of state, which can block virtually any initiative of another office.
"Who is influential isn't so much dependent on what your office is or your title but whether you have access to the king, or in this case the pope," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, author of "Inside the Vatican," a bible of sorts for understanding the Vatican Curia.
The same could be said for any executive branch. But in the case of the Vatican, there's a difference.
"Obama can fire anybody he wants from his cabinet," Reese said. "When you make someone a bishop, you make him a bishop for life. When you make him a cardinal you make him a prince of the church. What do you do with a cardinal (who doesn't work out)? He can't go to K Street and get a job as a lobbyist."
Though increasingly international, the Curia is also a very Italian creature, which affects its priorities, weaknesses and style of governance. "Genealogy is important, who begat whom," noted one recently departed Vatican official, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as to not antagonize former colleagues.
The typical Italian way of getting things done via personal stamps of approval, or "raccomandanzione," guides introductions. The Italian way of persuasion, less overt power play than Machiavellian machinations, governs consensus-building and decision-making.
Italian commentator Massimo Franco recently concluded on the pages of Corriere della Sera that the Vatican bureaucracy today is simply "ungovernable."
Though it's open to interpretation, Benedict's final homily as pope could be read as a clear message to the cardinals who will choose his successor.
Two days after announcing he would resign, a weary Benedict told his flock gathered in St. Peter's Basilica for Ash Wednesday Mass to live their lives as Christians in order to show the true face of the church — a church, he said, which is often "defiled."
"I think in particular about the attacks against the unity of the church, the divisions in the ecclesial body," he said. He told those gathered that "moving beyond individualisms and rivalries is a humble and precious sign for those who are far from the faith or indifferent to it."
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it was wrong to interpret the pope's words as being directed at the Vatican Curia, saying the pope's message was intended as a call for unity among all Christians, a priority of his as pontiff.
"Differences and diversity of opinion are part of the normal dynamic of any institution or community," Lombardi said. He said the way the Vatican's governance problems are often described "do not correspond to reality."
___
Rachel Zoll in New York and George Jahn in Vienna contributed.
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield


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2/18 /13 news 

Pope resignation deepens doubt, despondency for Italians



ROME (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's shock resignation has robbed Italians of the one element of certainty in a time of deep doubt, with the country beset by graft scandals and heading for an election that will not bring the radical change so many crave.
The pontiff has long been the one stable element for Roman Catholic Italians in a modern state that has become a byword for political instability and flawed politicians.
All that changed a week ago when Benedict announced he would be the first pontiff in 700 years to resign, causing alarm and despondency among many faithful in a country whose history has been shaped by the presence of the headquarters of the Church for 2,000 years.
"We are in a moment of social, ideological and cultural crisis and in a moment like that it is completely wrong for him to leave," said Emanuele Vitale, 22, a Sicilian student who joined around 100,000 people packed into St Peter's Square on Sunday for one of Benedict's last appearances before his resignation on February 28.
Another person in the square, pensioner Antonio Mingrone, 68, said: "It is unsettling. At a time when there are all these political conflicts and an economic crisis, it is one more thing weighing on our minds."
Outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti, himself a devout Catholic, referred to the "disorientation" of Italians over the pope's decision. "It seems like an epoch is changing on both sides of the Tiber and we feel robbed of points of reference."
Massimo Franco, a leading Italian political commentator and author of several books on the Vatican, told Reuters: "The resignation adds instability to instability. The Church which was a source of stability is now a major source of instability.
"Today the Vatican is a sort of mirror of Italy," Franco said. "Before it was the opposite. Now there is a chaotic Italy and chaotic Vatican."
Italians will vote next Sunday and Monday in an election whose outcome is still unpredictable at a time when the country desperately needs firm and decisive government to address a major recession, stagnant growth and soaring unemployment.
DISGUST WITH POLITICIANS
Poll after poll over the last year has shown Italians disgusted with a political class which has clung to its own privileges as the euro zone's third biggest but chronically uncompetitive economy descended deeper into crisis.
Instead they look like getting the opposite result from the one they want. The main beneficiary is likely to be Genoese comic Beppe Grillo, whose obscenity-laced diatribes against politicians have pulled in big crowds around Italy on his "tsunami" campaign tour, but whose own policies remain vague.
Grillo was quick to jump on the pope's abdication, telling a rally in northern Italy: "Everything is collapsing, even the pope has resigned."
Italians are divided over the pope's decision but many see it as an example to ageing local politicians, especially since Benedict has issued veiled complaints over the last week about Vatican rivalries, suggesting that fierce power struggles in the Curia or Church government contributed to his decision.
"For the first time a person in power has recognized he wasn't able to govern and has resigned. A bit of a clear-out would be good for Italy too. We have built an entire political system on corruption," said charity worker Marco Orlando, 34.
Despite repeated pledges, the outgoing parliament failed to repeal a despised election law known as the "pigsty" because it gives party leaders control over who gets elected and awards a giant vote bonus to the party that wins.
It also muddies the waters in the upper house, or senate, by awarding winner's bonuses on a regional basis.
In addition, lawmakers failed to remove the extravagant privileges of a political "caste" and stopped short of a broad anti-corruption law.
Right on cue - some say it is no coincidence - the final weeks of the election campaign have seen an extraordinary wave of corruption scandals that have added to the disgust of a nation already well used to graft.
SCANDALS LINKED TO ELECTION
Many Italians believe that politicized magistrates have unleashed the scandals as part of the election battle.
Two major companies, defense group Finmeccanica and oil major Eni, and Tuscan bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italy's third largest lender, are being probed for crimes ranging from bribing foreign officials to accounting fraud.
Finmeccanica boss Giuseppe Orsi and four executives from other firms have been arrested, not to mention several other ongoing investigations touching all the major parties.
Pollster Maurizio Pessato, of the SWG firm, told Reuters: "The voters are saying, 'I can't take it any more, there is a scandal every day. Even the pope has denounced problems inside the Church'. It is as if you cannot have faith any more in all the ruling classes, political, economic and the Curia."
Monti, as a technocrat premier, was once seen as one of the few people who could change Italy. But he has disappointed his backers, allying with two centrist politicians who are very much a part of the existing fabric and now stuck at less than 15 percent in the polls after a hurried and badly run campaign.
He is way behind Grillo who is thought to be close to 20 percent.
Billionaire media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, who at 76 hardly represents a new style of politics, has stormed back in the polls through his communication skills and masterful use of television.
But pollsters say his centre-right group is still 4-5 percentage points behind the centre-left and is losing votes to Grillo, whose rants against politicians have been strengthened by the graft scandals.
In terms of political charisma, Berlusconi has run rings around Monti and colorless centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani. But the latter is still expected to win next week's vote and to try to rule in coalition with the outgoing premier.
Young Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi, who was one of the few fresh faces in the campaign, mounted a credible challenge to Bersani, but was seen off by the disciplined party machine.
Which all means that instead of getting revival and a new style of politician, Italians are going to see the same old faces after the vote, jostling for position in a traditional back corridor negotiation for power and perhaps incapable of the drastic economic reform that is required.
"Everything is happening at once," pensioner Lossardo Calogero, 66, told Reuters after Benedict announced his resignation. "It's dramatic. I cannot see a way out. There needs to be a revolution, but at least I am retired. I am more worried about the young. My son cannot find a job.".
(Additional reporting by Robin Pomeroy, Naomi O'Leary and Steve Scherer; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Prophecy of the Popes (LatinProphetia Sancte Malachiae Archiepiscopi, de Summis Pontificibus) is a series of of 112 short, cryptic phrases in Latin which purport to predict theRoman Catholic popes (along with a few antipopes), beginning with Pope Celestine II. The alleged prophecies were first published by Benedictine monk Fra Arnold de Wyon in 1595. Wyon attributes the prophecies to Saint Malachy, a 12th‑century Irish Archbishop of Armagh.
Given the very accurate description of popes up to 1590 and lack of accuracy after that year, academic historians generally conclude that the alleged prophecies were fabricated, written shortly before they were published.
The current Bishop of RomePope Benedict XVI, would correspond to the pope described in the penultimate prophecy. The list ends with a pope identified as "Peter the Roman", whosepontificate will allegedly bring the destruction of the city of Rome, the Catholic Church and usher the beginning of the Apocalypse.[1]
The Roman Catholic Church denounces the alleged prophecies as both forgery,[2]shoehorning and manipulated postdiction,[3] noting the Biblical passage from the Parable of the Ten Virgins that no human nor angelic being knows the hour or time of the apocalypse.[4][5][6] while the topic continues to be a part of papal hysteria and conspiracy theories, oftentimes fueled by Anti-Catholic sentiments.

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[edit]History

The alleged prophecies were first published in 1595 by a Benedictine named Arnold de Wyon in his Lignum Vitæ, a history of the Benedictine order. Wyon attributed the prophecies to Saint Malachy, the 12th‑century Archbishop of Armagh. He explained that the prophecies had not, to his knowledge, ever been printed before, but that many were eager to see them. Wyon includes both the alleged original prophecies, consisting of short, cryptic Latin phrases, as well as an interpretation applying the statements to historical popes up to Urban VII (pope for thirteen days in 1590), which Wyon attributes to Alphonsus Ciacconius.[7]
According to the traditional account, Malachy was summoned to Rome in 1139 by Pope Innocent II to receive two wool palliums for the metropolitan sees of Armagh and Cashel. While in Rome, Malachy purportedly experienced a vision of future popes, which he recorded as a sequence of cryptic phrases. This manuscript was then deposited in the Vatican Secret Archives, and forgotten about until its rediscovery in 1590, supposedly just in time for a papal conclave ongoing at the time.[8]
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a contemporary biographer of Malachy who recorded the saint's alleged miracles, makes no mention of the prophecies, nor are they mentioned in any record prior to their 1595 publication.[9]

Friday, February 15, 2013

Meteors signs!



This end of the world dream is starting to get annoying



UNREAD_POSTby ArcanaMoon on Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:49 pm
I almost couldn't wake up from my nightmare this past night, I dreamed I was with a lot of the people I know, friends, family, then I saw a giant Meteor come crashing down in the sky, when it hit, it was still far from where I was, this giant heat wave was heading straight towards up destroying everything in it's path. My first reaction, I couldn't close my eye but for some reason I blocked my nose, but the heat wave didn't reach up, then Lava started gushing out from the ground where it hit, then I was able to wake up.

I don't know why I have this dream but it's not the first time I have a dream like this, only the other ones weren't about a meteor, they were simply the sun getting rid of a layer thus burning the earth to a crisp.


Re: This end of the world dream is starting to get annoying

UNREAD_POSTby Gus Who on Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:20 pm



Well there was a Meteor strike ... 
Nuclear-like in its intensity, Russian meteor blast is the largest since 1908

I'd say its a sign. 

My :2cents:



Bright Streak, Likely Meteor Lights Up Florida Sky

Coast Guard says it received reports of “orange or red fireballs in the sky."

By Juan Ortega and Gilma Avalos
|  Monday, Feb 18, 2013  |  Updated 1:31 AM PST

South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday nightsaw one spectacular light show – possibly a sporadic meteor.
The Coast Guard began getting flooded with phone calls about 7:30 p.m., with reports of folks seeing flare-like objects from Jacksonville to Key West, according to Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Laberdesque.
People called in, describing the flares “as orange or red fireballs in the sky,” Laberdesque said. The display was limited to the sky: No injuries were reported, Laberdesque said.


A sporadic meteor is basically a rocky object that comes from the asteroid belt, said Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, based in Genesee, N.Y. The group logged 27 reports within about the first two hours of the event, he said.
"This is a lot of reports to come in quickly," Hankey said. 
Gauging by the reports, it happened somewhere over the ocean.
"These fireballs are common," Hankey said. "It’s rare for any one person to see one more than once or twice in their lifetime. But on any given night, it might happen somewhere in the globe a few times in a day."
























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Cuba, too, reports powerful meteorite explosion

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba apparently experienced a phenomenon similar to but smaller than themeteorite that detonated over Russia this week, island media reported, with startled residents describing a bright light in the sky and a loud explosion that shook windows and walls.
There were no reports of any injuries or damage such as those caused by the Russia meteorite, which sent out shockwaves that hurt some 1,200 people and shattered countless windows.
In a video from a state TV newscast posted on the website CubaSi late Friday, unidentified residentsof the central city of Rodas, near Cienfuegos, said the explosion was impressive.
"On Tuesday we left home to fish around five in the afternoon, and around 8:00 we saw a light in the heavens and then a big ball of fire, bigger than the sun," one local man said in the video.
"My home shook completely," said a woman. "I had never heard such a strange thing."
Marcos Rodriguez, whom the video identified as a specialist in anthropology, said all signs point to a meteorite.
According to scientists, five to 10 smaller meteorites hit the planet each year. Larger events like the one over Russia are more rare, and some experts said it may have been the biggest such blast since another meteor hit Siberia in 1908.
Also Friday, residents of the San Francisco Bay Area reported seeing a fireball in the sky that scientists said was likely a piece of space rock. Another meteor in the same area last October caused a loud sonic boom.
In Cuba, a reporter on the video said a similar phenomenon was observed in 1994 elsewhere in Cienfuegos province.
It said Cuban authorities were looking for any fragments that may have fallen to the earth.

Fireball Lights Up Northern California Skies: Reports

It's really starting to look like the sky is falling.
According to media reports, a fireball streaked through the skies above California's Bay Area Friday evening (Feb. 15), just hours after another bright meteor exploded over the Russian city ofChelyabinsk and a 150-foot-wide (45 meters) asteroid gave Earth a historically close shave.
The Bay Area fireball blazed up around 7:45 p.m. local time Friday (10:45 p.m. EST; 0345 GMT Saturday), NBC Bay Area reported. The meteor apparently had a bluish tinge and was visible over a wide swath of the region, from Fairfield north of San Francisco Bay down to Gilroy, which is south of San Jose.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, which distinguished the California fireball from itsRussian counterpart. The Chelyabinsk blast generated a powerful shock wave that damaged hundreds of buildings and wounded more than 1,000 people.
Friday's Russian fireball was the largest such explosion since a 1908 airburst levelled 825 square miles (2,137 square kilometers) of forest in the Tunguska region of Siberia, NASA scientists said.
The flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14, which also took place Friday, didn't generate such pyrotechnics in the atmosphere, but it was dramatic enough in its own right. The space rock cruised to within 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers) of Earth at one point, coming closer than the ring of geosynchronous satellites circling the planet.
The flyby marked the closest approach of such a large asteroid that astronomers had ever known about in advance.
The space rock that generated the Chelyabinsk fireball had nothing to do with asteroid 2012 DA14, NASA researchers stressed. Little is known about where the Bay Area meteor came from at the moment, but it may turn out to be unrelated as well, making Friday a day of truly improbable cosmic coincidences.


Yekaterina Pustynnikova/Chelyabinsk.ru, via Associated Press

A contrail from what is believed to be a meteor is seen over Chelyabinsk. More Photos »


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MOSCOW — Gym class came to a halt inside the Chelyabinsk Railway Institute, and students gathered around the window, gazing at the fat white contrail that arced its way across the morning sky. A missile? A comet? A few quiet moments passed. And then, with incredible force, the windows blew in.
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The scenes from Chelyabinsk, rocked by an intense shock wave when a meteor hit the Earth’s atmosphere Friday morning, offer a glimpse of an apocalyptic scenario that many have walked through mentally, and Hollywood has popularized, but scientists say has never before injured so many people.
Students at the institute crammed through a staircase thickly blanketed with glass out to the street, where hundreds stood in awe, looking at the sky. The flash came in blinding white, so bright that the vivid shadows of buildings slid swiftly and sickeningly across the ground. It burst yellow, then orange. And then there was the sound of frightened, confused people.
Around 1,200 people, 200 of them children, were injured, mostly by glass that exploded into schools and workplaces, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry. Others suffered skull trauma and broken bones. No deaths were reported. A city administrator in Chelyabinsk said that more than a million square feet of glass shattered, leaving many buildings exposed to icy cold.
And as scientists tried to piece together the chain of events that led to Friday’s disaster — on the very day a small asteroid passed close to Earth — residents of Chelyabinsk were left to grapple with memories that seemed to belong in science fiction.
“I opened the window from surprise — there was such heat coming in, as if it were summer in the yard, and then I watched as the flash flew by and turned into a dot somewhere over the forest,” wrote Darya Frenn, a blogger. “And in several seconds there was an explosion of such force that the window flew in along with its frame, the monitor fell, and everything that was on the desk.”
“God forbid you should ever have to experience anything like this,” she wrote.
At 9 a.m., the sun had just risen on the Ural Mountains, which form a ridge between European Russia and the vast stretch of Siberia to the east. The area around Chelyabinsk is a constellation of defense-manufacturing cities, including some devoted to developing and producing nuclear weapons. The factory towns are separated by great expanses of uninhabited forest.
As residents of Chelyabinsk began their day on Friday, a 10-ton meteor around 10 feet in diameter was hurtling toward the earth at a speed of about 10 to 12 miles per second, experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences reported in a statement released Friday. Scientists believe the meteor exploded upon hitting the lower atmosphere and disintegrated at an altitude of about 20 to 30 miles above the Earth’s surface — not an especially unusual event, the statement said.
This meteor was unusual because its material was so hard — it may have been made of iron, the statement said — which allowed some small fragments, or meteorites, perhaps 5 percent of the meteor’s mass, to reach the Earth’s surface. Nothing similar has been recorded in Russian territory since 2002, the statement said.
Estimates of the meteor’s size varied considerably. Peter G. Brown, a physics professor and director of the Center for Planetary Science and Exploration at the University of Western Ontario, said it was closer to 50 feet in diameter and probably weighed around 7,000 tons. He said the energy released by the explosion was equivalent to 300 kilotons of TNT, making it the largest recorded since the1908 Tunguska explosion in Siberia, which is believed to have been caused by an asteroid.
Meteors typically cause sonic booms when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and the one that occurred over Chelyabinsk was forceful enough to shatter dishes and televisions in people’s homes. Car alarms were triggered for miles around, and the roof of a zinc factory partially collapsed. Video clips, uploaded by the hundreds starting early Friday morning, showed ordinary mornings interrupted by a blinding flash and the sound of shattering glass.
Maria Polyakova, 25, head of reception at the Park-City Hotel in Chelyabinsk, said it was the light that caught her eye.
“I saw a flash in the window, turned toward it and saw a burning cloud, which was surrounded by smoke and was going downward — it reminded me of what you see after an explosion,” she said. The blast that followed was forceful enough to shatter the heavy automatic glass doors on the hotel’s first floor, as well as many windows on the floor above, she said.
Valentina Nikolayeva, a teacher in Chelyabinsk, described it as “an unreal light” that filled all the classrooms on one side of School No. 15.
“It was a light which never happens in life, it happens probably only in the end of the world,” she said in a clip posted on a news portal, LifeNews.ru. She said she saw a vapor trail, like one that appears after an airplane, only dozens of times bigger. “The light was coming from there. Then the light went out and the trail began to change. The changes were taking place within it, like in the clouds, because of the wind. It began to shrink and then, a minute later, an explosion.”
“A shock wave,” she said. “It was not clear what it was but we were deafened at that moment. The window glass flew.”
The strange light had drawn many to the windows, the single most dangerous place to be. Tyoma Chebalkin, a student at Southern Urals State University, said that the shock wave traveled from the western side the city, and that anyone standing close to windows — security guards at their posts, for instance — was caught in a hail of broken glass.
He spoke to Vozhd.info, an online news portal, four hours after the explosion, when cellphones, which had been knocked out, were still out of order. He said that traffic was at a standstill in the city center, and that everyone he could see was trying to place calls. He said he saw no signs of panic.
In those strange hours, Ms. Frenn, the blogger, wrote down the thoughts that had raced through her mind — radiation, a plane crash, the beginning of a war — and noted that her extremities went numb while she was waiting to hear that the members of her family were unhurt.
When emergency officials announced that what had occurred was a meteor, what occurred to her was: It could happen again.
“I am at home, whole and alive,” she wrote. “I have gathered together my documents and clothes. And a carrier for the cats. Just in case.”

Viktor Klimenko contributed reporting from Moscow, Alan Cowell from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.
Viktor Klimenko contributed reporting from Moscow, Alan Cowell from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 15, 2013
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the name of the university at which Peter Brown is the director of the Center for Planetary Science and Exploration. It is Canada’s University of Western Ontario, not Western University.