Meteorite Streaks Across Western Sky
A bright, blue-green meteorite flashed through the skies over Southern California on Tuesday, setting off a celestial light show visible from San Francisco to Mexico, officials said.
Michael McDermott, a staff member at Los Angeles’ Griffith Park Observatory, said he saw the streaking light at about 9 p.m.
McDermott said the light was probably caused by a meteor fragment entering the atmosphere.
A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman in San Francisco said a helicopter was sent up after the light was sighted in the belief that it might have been a flare from a vessel in distress.
A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles said the agency had received reports of the meteorite from “literally scores of pilots from Riverside to the coast.”
He said the Sheriff’s Department in San Luis Obispo County received calls from residents who thought the light was an aircraft exploding in the sky.
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