Discussion Started: 02-19-2008, 7:20 AM
The streaking light in the sky of a meteor was seen across a wide area of the Pacific Northwest early Tuesday. Did you see it?
Meteor Seen Across Pacific Northwest
POSTED: 6:56 am PST February 19, 2008
UPDATED: 5:18 pm PST February 19, 2008
Please see my editorial commentary and the message I sent to KIROTV.com Please click here for this editorial:
SPOKANE, Washington-- A meteor that streaked across the skies over the Pacific Northwest sparked a flood of calls to police, the FAA and television stations early Tuesday morning.
People from Boise, Idaho, to cities throughout western Washington reported seeing a flash in the cloudless predawn sky at about 5:30 a.m.
"I heard a rumbling noise and I just turned around and I looked up," said Anthony Fazzino, of Fife. "In the sky I saw something huge, red and yellow and little blue in it, maybe, I saw fire, it looked like a big thing of fire."
A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Seattle, Mike Fergus, told The Associated Press that a Horizon Airlines pilot saw the meteorite hit earth about 5:45 a.m. Fergus said the pilot reported a flash and a burst of light near State Route 26 and the Lind-Hatton Road in the southeast corner of Adams County in southeastern Washington. The Adams County Sheriff's Office and State Patrol said they had no reports of an impact.
Duvall resident and KIRO 7 employee Leroy Gates said he wondered if the flash was part of a power outage.
"It looked like 100 transformers blew up in front of me and all the Cascades lit up, my barn lit up and everything around me lit up and then it was gone," Gates said.
FAA officials said pilots reported seeing the meteor in the sky from Boise, Idaho, far into Washington state.
Kjerstin Ramsing, a Spokane television reporter who saw the flash, told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News it looked like summer lightning in the distance or an exploding transformer.
She said officials at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington told her that a meteor coming through the Earth's atmosphere could be "as large as a steamer trunk."
"Living on top of the mountain, I see a lot of shooting stars and a lot of this kind of thing, but nor this bright, not this bright at all. It was definitely something to be seen," Gates said.
A Coast Guard representative told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News the agency received numerous reports from people in the Puget Sound area who saw a bright flash in the sky.
Television stations in Spokane reported getting viewer calls from across Washington state and north Idaho, parts of Oregon and southeastern British Columbia, starting about 5:30 a.m.
The callers said it resembled summer lightning, a rocket, a satellite or an exploding transformer. A viewer from Walla Walla, about 55 miles south-southeast of the reported crash site, said she heard a sonic boom and felt a shockwave not long after seeing the streaking meteor.
There have been no reports of damage or injury, and sheriff's dispatchers said they don't know of any meteorite landing.
"I’ve seen a lot of thing, but this is unreal. Unreal," Fazzino said.
Copyright 2008 by KIROTV.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.