Video: Norwegian Skydiver Nearly Hit by Meteorite

By Cynthia Herbert :: 4:34 PM

A skydiver in Norway was nearly struck by a falling meteorite when he took a jump in 2012, and today, that video is making the rounds of the Internet.

Anders Helstrup, along with several other members of the Oslo Parachute Club were on a jump in the summer of 2012 that originated from the Østre Æra Airport in Hedmark, Norway. The jump was routine, but Helstrup had noticed something strange just after his parachute deployed.

“I got the feeling that there was something, but I didn’t register what was happening,” Helstrup said of the experience, to Norwegian news outlet NRK.

Helstrup’s jump was being filmed by a helmet-mounted camera, and when he later reviewed the footage, he clearly saw how close he came to being struck by the space rock.

Despite involving scientists from the Natural History Museum is Oslo, Helstrup and his friends have yet to locate the rock after it plummeted to Earth.

“It can’t be anything else,” Oslo geologist Hans Amundsen told NRK news. “The shape is typical of meteorites, a fresh fracture surface on one side, while the other side is rounded.”

The video is important because it is the first time in the world that a meteorite has been filmed during what is known as ‘dark flight.’ This is the period of time when the bright light around a meteorite fades away, and the rock begins to fall straight down towards Earth, with no light surrounding it at all.

Watch the video below – the meteorite appears around the 26 second mark.