[meteorite-list] Meteor Shower Reports Abound Along East Coast

From: Brice <Brice_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:43:34 2004
Message-ID: <017801c11454$26982c80$6f01a8c0_at_lwrnc1.in.home.com>

Meteor Shower Reports Abound Along East Coast
July 23, 2001 11:12 pm EST
By David Morgan
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters)

Reports of a possible meteor shower flooded police and government telephone
lines along the U.S. East Coast on Monday, authorities said.

The sightings of what some described as a fast-moving meteor prompted
evening rush-hour motorists to pull off suburban highways west of
Philadelphia.

Pilots in flight issued reports of similar sightings to federal aviation
officials in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Authorities said
eyewitness accounts came from upstate New York to Virginia.

"People say they saw what was perhaps a meteor shower, but there's nothing
we can confirm," said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene
Salac.

A Reuters reporter saw a tapered object shaped like a trumpet bell falling
diagonally through the western sky near West Chester, Pennsylvania, 20 miles
from Philadelphia, at about 6:20 p.m.

The object emitted a lustrous rainbow of colors, ranging from bright yellow
on its downward-pointing flared end to light green and finally rust-colored
red at the upward-pointing tapered end.


Others reported seeing a triangular object or a fireball shooting through
the sky.

People living near Montoursville, Pennsylvania, a rural community 130 miles
northwest of Philadelphia, reported hearing a loud explosion after seeing
the unidentified object. A state police dispatcher said one woman reported
that the blast broke windows in her home.

There were also unconfirmed reports of people finding debris on the ground.

"It was a ball of fire," Mark Barbour of Syracuse, New York, told CNN. "It
looked like something you would see from the movies."

The National Weather Service reported no natural phenomena that could
account for such a sight.

Police in Pennsylvania were investigating the possibility of a part falling
from a plane from Philadelphia International Airport, which sometimes guides
flights across the city's western suburbs. But sightings were later reported
southward through Delaware, Maryland, Washington and into Virginia.

There were no reports of aviation emergencies, apart from the nonfatal crash
of a single-engine plane in Calvert, Maryland, near the state's border with
Pennsylvania and Delaware.

"We have no idea what it was, whether it was a meteor or what," said
National Weather Service spokesman Curtis Carey.
Received on Tue 24 Jul 2001 11:20:19 AM PDT