Meteor lights up night sky

12:10 PM PST on Sunday, March 13, 2005

From kgw.com Staff and Wire Reports

SEATTLE - A fireball streaked through the night sky across the western half of the Pacific Northwest on Saturday night, startling people all the way from the southern Oregon coast to Canada.

Residents across the Northwest reported seeing the bright streak of light as it flashed across the sky. The flash lasted up to five seconds, and was captured on home video by a witness in Talent, Ore.

Scientists said the flaming object was probably a meteor, and that it likely disintegrated before any fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean.

KGW photo

A finger points to a flash in the sky that was captured on home video in Talent, Ore.

Summer Jensen said she was sitting in her living room with her father when she saw the flash of light outside her Portland home and rushed to see what it was.

"It was like a big ball of fire," and "behind it was a trail of blue," she said.

"I've never seen anything like that," Jensen said, adding that the object appeared to be moving slowly.

Alex Benenson of Salem was driving south along Interstate-5, about halfway between Albany and Eugene, when he noticed the fireball.

"It was bright green leaving a trail of golden sparks, and as it faded it broke up into several smaller parts," he said in an e-mail to kgw.com.

T. Stabler of Clatskanie described it as "a perfectly round green object with an orange comet-like tail," while Andi Nounou of Camas, Wash., told kgw.com that the "fiery object - green in color tone with sparkling tail" looked "like a firework."

Michael O'Connor, a duty officer at the Federal Aviation Administration's regional office in Renton, Wash., said he fielded "a whole ton of calls" from people reporting they had seen a bright streak across the sky shortly before 8 p.m.

He said police, pilots and some air traffic controllers described it as "a green ball of fire with a long tail."

O'Connor said reports came from as far east as the Tri-Cities area in Washington.

"It appears to have come down over the ocean," said Dick Pugh of the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory in Portland. He said the object flew over the Pacific Coast, streaking along from south to north.

Melinda Hutson, another expert at the lab, said meteors large enough to turn into fireballs are uncommon.

To get a fireball, it has to be "a big piece of rock or metal — most are pieces of asteroids. Once every once in a while a piece of the moon or Mars breaks off," she said.

Astronomer Jim Todd, planetarium director at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, said that if the meteor had entered the atmosphere during the daytime, it may not even have been noticed.

"It creates a bright contrast against the night sky," Todd said.

Last year, a meteor that appeared like a fireball was sighted over western Washington state.

On March 27, 2003, residents in four Midwestern states also reported seeing a disintegrating meteorite flash across the sky. More than 100 chunks of rock believed to be the remains of that meteor rained down on houses, puncturing roofs and destroying landscaping in Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb south of Chicago. No one was injured.

The last time a meteor was reported striking anything on the ground in Oregon -- becoming a meteorite -- was in May 1981.