PORT ANGELES — A fireball that streaked across the Pacific Northwest was witnessed by 134 people, including one in Port Angeles, who reported the sighting to the American Meteor Society.
The cause of the fireball seen just before midnight Friday was unknown Saturday.
It is “hard to say if it was a spacecraft debris or not,” Jim Todd, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Space Science Education director, told KOIN 6 news of Portland, Ore., on Saturday morning.
Most of the sightings were reported in the Portland area, with a smattering stretching north into Washington state, according to the American Meteor Society of New York.
The American Meteor Society hosts a website with a detailed map listing the 134 locations where sightings were reported. It can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/PDN-FireballMap.
On that site, a person identified as “Mr. A” in Port Angeles reports seeing an object moving across the sky, first white and then turning to orange with a sparkling tail.
“It didn’t appear to be traveling as fast as meteors I’ve seen before,” he wrote on the site.
A video of the fireball streaking through the sky is posted online at https://tinyurl.com/PDN-Fireball Video.
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Features Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
