ARLINGTON — Driving to work early Tuesday morning along Highway 9, Jeanne Mulford got a glimpse of a rare meteor that officials said streaked across Washington skies before apparently crashing near Spokane.
“It was really nice. It was a really pretty green, kind of a Saint Patrick’s Day green,” the Arlington woman said.
At first she thought the meteor was fireworks, Mulford said.
“All of a sudden, I see this big green oblong shape heading to the ground,” she said. “I swear it wasn’t more than a half-mile away. It appeared that it went right into the trees.”
Bright lights and sonic booms were reported in parts of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, officials said.
Although a witness reported seeing the object strike the Earth in a remote part of Adams County, in southeast Washington, no evidence has been found.
“I’m convinced it was a meteor,” said Geoff Chester, spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. “It was a classic description of a fireball.”
Chester speculated the meteor was the size of a big suitcase and had been orbiting the sun for millions of years before entering Earth’s orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration said a private pilot reported seeing the meteor hit the Earth in a burst of light about 5:45 a.m.
The Adams County sheriff’s office had no immediate reports of damage, injury or a meteor landing in the area, about 90 miles southwest of Spokane.
People commonly think they see a meteor hit or about to hit the ground, when it is nowhere close, Chester said.
Most meteorites that strike the Earth are never found, he said.
“When you see objects like this in the sky your sense of scale is distorted,” he said. “It’s a common optical illusion.”
That appeared to be the case for Mulford, who was driving to work in Snohomish.
“When it hit I was directly next to it, at least in appearance,” she said. “I saw as it appeared to hit … It went behind the trees.”
A number of pilots reported seeing the meteor streaking through the sky from Boise, Idaho, into Washington state, the FAA said.
Surveillance cameras in the region captured a ball of light in the sky and then a flash illuminating the early morning darkness.
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.
Mulford said she saw the meteor just before 5:30 a.m.
“Yeah, I wasn’t crazy,” she said.
“It’s one of things you’re not sure. I really thought it was fireworks when I first saw it. There was no sound with it, no boom.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
