Bonilla observation

Short description: 1883 astronomical event

One of the photographs from the Bonilla observation.

The Bonilla observation was an astronomical event in 1883 in which hundreds of unidentified flying objects were observed and photographed by Mexican astronomer José Bonilla.[1]

The photographs taken during the Bonilla observation are generally regarded as one of the first known examples of photographs of "unidentified flying objects".[2] Though the objects were assumed to be flocks of high-flying geese, astronomers have suggested more recently that Bonilla was observing a nearby comet breaking apart.[3][4]

## Contents

* 1 Background
* 2 Event
* 3 Investigation
* 4 Impact on culture
* 5 References

## Background

José A. y Bonilla (1853-1920) was a Mexican astronomer. Educated in engineering and astrophotography in Zacatecas, Mexico City, and Paris, he was elected the first director of the Astronomical Observatory in the State of Zacatecas in Ciudad de Zacatecas, Zacatecas, Mexico in 1882.[5]

The Astronomical Observatory in the State of Zacatecas was opened in December 1882. It is now known as the Meteorological Observatory Zacatecas.[6]

## Event

The observatory atop La Bufa Hill, where the sighting took place.

On August 12, 1883, Bonilla was preparing his telescope for a study when he noticed that objects seemed to be partially blocking the Sun. Intrigued, Bonilla spent the next 48 hours using a process known as Collodion process to capture 447 ink photographs of the objects.[2]

Along with his photographs, Bonilla also left descriptions of what he noticed in order to clarify what the low-quality ink images were showing, as well as a significant amount of data. Bonilla described the objects as 'fuzzy' or 'misty' in nature, and often referred to objects that had 'dark tails'.[2]

## Investigation

Bonilla's observations were published in the January 1, 1886 edition of the French astronomy magazine L’Astronomie where the magazine's founder and editor, French physicist Camille Flammarion, couldn't come to a specific conclusion as to what Bonilla had observed, but Flammarion believed that Bonilla had misperceived birds, insects, or dust in front of his telescope as being in space.[1] Bonilla died in 1920 in Mexico City.[7]

In October 2011, astronomy researchers Héctor Manterola, María Ramos Lara, and Guadalupe Cordero from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City released a preprint detailing their conclusion that what Bonilla had witnessed were fragments of a comet that had exploded in space.[5] Manterola defended his theory by explaining that parallax made it so that only places along the same latitude as Zacatecas were able to witness the event. The African and Asian civilizations on the same latitude did not have the means of observing this event.[8]

Assuming Bonilla's timings to be correct, Manterola's team calculated a distance to the objects as between 538 kilometers (334 mi) and 8,062 kilometers (5,009 mi) above ground, and between 68 meters (223 ft) and 795 meters (2,608 ft) in length. If made of ice, they would be between 5.58×108 kilograms (1.23×107 lbs) and 2.5×1012 kilograms (5.51×1010 lbs) in mass. Extrapolating Bonilla's observation of 447 objects over a period of 3 hours 25 minutes to 3275 fragments over a 25 hour period, Manterola et al. estimated that the original comet had a mass between 1.83×1012 kilograms (4.03×1010 lbs) and 8.19×1015 kilograms (1.81×1014 lbs). This spans three and a half orders of magnitude. Manterola et al. note that the upper bound is equivalent to 8.19 times the mass of Halley's Comet, and likened the potential impact of these comet fragments to the 1908 Tunguska event, stating "...if [the fragments] had collided with Earth we would have had 3,275 Tunguska events in two days -- probably an extinction event.[5]"[9]

## Impact on culture

The Bonilla observation is considered to be one of the first ever instances of a photograph of a UFO. The story became a focus of interest for UFO enthusiasts on the Internet after the 2011 study was released.[2]

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Billion-Ton Comet May Have Missed Earth by a Few Hundred Kilometers in 1883" (in en). https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/10/17/21387/billion-ton-comet-may-have-missed-earth-by-a-few-hundred-kilometers-in-1883/.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Voisey, Jon (2011-10-14). "Was the "First Photographed UFO" a Comet?" (in en-US). https://www.universetoday.com/89911/was-the-first-photographed-ufo-a-comet/.
3. ↑ Baker, Robert A. (May 1992). Missing Pieces. Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781615924141. https://books.google.com/books?id=ehvORpWynGYC&dq=bonilla+ufo&pg=PA185.
4. ↑ Yirka, Bob (Oct 19, 2011). "Mexican astronomers suggest Bonilla sighting might have been a very close comet breaking up" (in en). https://phys.org/news/2011-10-mexican-astronomers-bonilla-sighting-comet.html.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Durand Manterola, Hector Javier; de la Paz Ramos Lara, Maria; Cordero, Guadalupe (12 October 2011). "Interpretation of the observations made in 1883 in Zacatecas (Mexico): A fragmented comet that nearly hits the Earth". arXiv:1110.2798 [astro-ph.EP].
6. ↑ México, Travel By. "Observatorio Meteorológico del Cerro de La Bufa, Zacatecas" (in es). https://www.travelbymexico.com/zacatecas/atractivos/?nom=kzacobserv.
7. ↑ AP (2015-01-16). "Conoce el talento de José Árbol y Bonilla" (in es). https://imagenzac.com.mx/gente/conoce-el-talento-de-jose-arbol-y-bonilla/.
8. ↑ "Did a massive comet almost wipe out humans in 1883?" (in en). 18 October 2011. https://theweek.com/articles/480924/did-massive-comet-almost-wipe-humans-1883.
9. ↑ "Was an 1883 astronomy mystery a near-miss billion tonne comet? (Wired UK)". Wired UK. 2012-01-19. https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/17/1883-astronomy-mystery. Retrieved 2023-03-22.

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Comet-like
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* 596 Scheila
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Lost|

| Recovered|

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* 271P/van Houten–Lemmon
* 273P/Pons–Gambart
* 289P/Blanpain

|

Destroyed|

* 3D/Biela
* 73P/Schwassmann–Wachmann
* D/1993 F2 (Shoemaker–Levy 9)

Not found|

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Visited by
spacecraft|

* 21P/Giacobini–Zinner (1985)
* 1P/Halley (1986)
* 26P/Grigg–Skjellerup (1992)
* 19P/Borrelly (2001)
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* 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (2014)

Non-Periodic
comets
(notable)|

| Until 1910|

* C/-43 K1 (Caesar's Comet)
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* C/1577 V1 (Great Comet of 1577)
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* C/1847 T1 (Miss Mitchell's Comet)
* C/1858 L1 (Comet Donati)
* C/1861 G1 (Comet Thatcher)
* C/1861 J1 (Great Comet of 1861)
* C/1865 B1 (Great Southern Comet of 1865)
* X/1872 X1 (Pogson's Comet)
* C/1874 H1 (Comet Coggia)
* C/1881 K1 (Comet Tebbutt)
* C/1882 R1 (Great Comet of 1882)
* C/1887 B1 (Great Southern Comet of 1887)
* C/1890 V1 (Comet Zona)
* C/1901 G1 (Great Comet of 1901)
* C/1910 A1 (Great January Comet of 1910)

|

After 1910|

* C/1911 O1 (Brooks)
* C/1911 S3 (Beljawsky)
* C/1927 X1 (Skjellerup–Maristany)
* C/1931 P1 (Ryves)
* C/1941 B2 (de Kock-Paraskevopoulos) [de; de]
* C/1947 X1 (Southern Comet) [de; de; C/1947 X1 (Südkomet)]
* C/1948 V1 (Eclipse)
* C/1956 R1 (Arend–Roland)
* C/1957 P1 (Mrkos) [de; de]
* C/1961 O1 (Wilson-Hubbard) [de; de]
* C/1961 R1 (Humason)
* C/1962 C1 (Seki-Lines) [de; de]
* C/1963 R1 (Pereyra)
* C/1965 S1 (Ikeya-Seki)
* C/1969 Y1 (Bennett)
* C/1970 K1 (White–Ortiz–Bolelli)
* C/1973 E1 (Kohoutek)
* C/1975 V1 (West)
* C/1980 E1 (Bowell)
* C/1983 H1 (IRAS–Araki–Alcock)
* C/1989 X1 (Austin)
* C/1989 Y1 (Skorichenko–George)
* C/1992 J1 (Spacewatch–Rabinowitz)
* C/1993 Y1 (McNaught–Russell)
* C/1995 O1 (Hale–Bopp)
* C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake)
* C/1997 L1 (Zhu–Balam)
* C/1998 H1 (Stonehouse)
* C/1998 J1 (SOHO)
* C/1999 F1 (Catalina)
* C/1999 S4 (LINEAR)
* C/2000 U5 (LINEAR)
* C/2000 W1 (Utsunomiya-Jones)
* C/2001 OG108 (LONEOS)
* C/2001 Q4 (NEAT)
* C/2002 T7 (LINEAR)
* C/2003 A2 (Gleason)
* C/2004 F4 (Bradfield) [de; de]
* C/2004 Q2 (Machholz)
* C/2006 A1 (Pojmański)
* C/2006 M4 (SWAN)
* C/2006 P1 (McNaught)
* C/2007 E2 (Lovejoy)
* C/2007 F1 (LONEOS)
* C/2007 K5 (Lovejoy)
* C/2007 N3 (Lulin)
* C/2007 Q3 (Siding Spring)
* C/2007 W1 (Boattini)
* C/2008 Q1 (Matičič)
* C/2009 F6 (Yi–SWAN)
* C/2009 R1 (McNaught)
* C/2010 X1 (Elenin)
* C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)
* C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)
* C/2012 E2 (SWAN)
* C/2012 F6 (Lemmon)
* C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS)
* C/2012 S1 (ISON)
* C/2012 S4 (PANSTARRS)
* C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring)
* C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)
* C/2013 US10 (Catalina)
* C/2013 V5 (Oukaimeden)
* C/2014 E2 (Jacques)
* C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)
* C/2015 ER61 (PANSTARRS)
* C/2015 V2 (Johnson)
* 1I/2017 U1 ʻOumuamua
* C/2017 U7
* C/2018 C2 (Lemmon)
* C/2019 E3 (ATLAS)
* 2I/Borisov

After 1910
(by name)|

* Arend–Roland
* Austin
* Beljawsky
* Bennett
* Boattini
* Bowell
* Bradfield [de; de]
* Brooks
* Catalina
* C/1999 F1
* C/2013 US10
* de Kock–Paraskevopoulos [de; de]
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* C/2007 K5
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* Lulin
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* Matičič
* McNaught
* C/2006 P1
* C/2009 R1
* McNaught–Russell
* Mrkos [de; de]
* NEAT
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* ʻOumuamua
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* C/2011 L4
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* C/2012 S4
* 311P
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* Ryves
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* Siding Spring
* C/2007 Q3
* C/2013 A1
* Skjellerup–Maristany
* Skorichenko–George
* SOHO
* Southern [de; de; C/1947 X1 (Südkomet)]
* Spacewatch–Rabinowitz
* Stonehouse
* SWAN
* C/2006 M4
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* Utsunomiya–Jones
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* White–Ortiz–Bolelli
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