Eugene Kane Don't know about you, but I was feeling a lot better about this new millennium thing until we started having meteor showers over Lake Michigan. Scientists say the Leonid meteors that swept over Earth last week were expected, although you couldn't tell by the widespread alarm from area folks shocked to see glaring lights over the lake. Lots of folks called up television and radio stations to report a plane on fire or some outer-worldly event, a wave of panic underscored by a grave fear of the unknown. Almost like what happens around here when the Packers lose. The Leonid shower is so named because the meteors seem to come from the constellation Leo.
Astronomers say it's actually a regular occurrence as the Earth travels through the comet's tail.
The meteor shower arrives every year around this time, but we usually can't see it that well, either because of clouds or the degree of intensity. It was a sight seen all over the globe, from Thailand to Russia to the Canary Islands to Cudahy. Which is probably the last time you'll see those places lumped together. The reason this seems a bit unsettling to me is I was just getting comfortable with the idea that the coming of the year 2000 would not be fraught with any great cataclysmic event, and along comes a rare phenomenon right outside my window. Most government agencies predict few or no problems with Y2K glitches in major areas of banking, air transportation and power supply.