Astronomer: Texas Mystery Fireball Was Meteor

The fireball that blazed across the Texas sky and sparked numerous weekend calls to law enforcement agencies now can be considered an identified flying object.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday the fireball was a natural phenomenon — not flying space junk — and a North Texas astronomer said more specifically that it was probably a pickup truck-sized meteor with the consistency of concrete.

The object was visible Sunday morning from Austin to Dallas and into East Texas.

In Central Texas, the Williamson County sheriff’s office received so many emergency calls that it sent a helicopter aloft to look for debris from a plane crash.

The FAA backed off its weekend claim that the fireball was caused by falling debris from colliding satellites plummeting into earth’s atmosphere.

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Mysterious Fireball Lights Up Night Sky – Edmonton Canada

A mysterious fireball lit up the sky across Edmonton and a large part of the prairies Thursday evening. Many witnesses reported that they saw “bright orange flames” with a large tail that shot horizontally across the sky and then disappeared.

Others said it looked like horizontal lightning, where all the clouds in one huge swath were lit up.

Richard Bellington said he was driving north of Highway 2 on his way to Edmonton when he saw the sky light up.

The flames were so bright and appeared to travel so close to the ground that he called 911.

South Edmonton resident Peter Koroluk said it was hard to tell where it landed.

“It came down with a huge tail following and it had lit up past way behind it attached to the ball,” he said. “This ball was about the size of a football.”

Dan Charrois, who lives about 50 kilometres north of Edmonton, said security cameras set up at his home managed to capture some grainy footage showing a big flare in the night sky.

“It happened so fast I don’t think anyone would have had the reaction time to get it,” he told CTV.ca, adding that his computer software business has written programs which track meteors.

Though Charrois didn’t see the fireball himself, he decided to check the security tapes after his friends and neighbours called him to find out where the light may have came from.

“I only had to rewind a couple of minutes and it was there,” he said, noting the security time stamped the flash at 5:26 p.m. local time.

“You kind of see a flash, which lasts about two seconds or so,” he said.

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