Jul 2, 2008 5:00 pm US/Eastern
Mysterious Fireball In Sky Alarms Californians
Witnesses Flood 911 With Phone Calls After Unexplained Incident
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (CBS) ―
A mysterious fireball lit up the sky above California's San Bernardino County on Tuesday morning.
Tom Barnes, a county fire dispatch supervisor, says people from the Nevada state line to Temecula reported seeing a bright streak falling near the San Bernardino Mountains.
Some witnesses say the streak was blue, orange and white.
No landing site was found.
"It certainly has the classic appearance of a meteor, that is a piece of debris from interplanetary space," Griffith Observatory director Dr. Ed Krupp told CBS station KCBS-TV.
"Whenever people see a bright meteor and their eyes are attracted to it, they are certain it came down just over the hill," he said. "It really is a great deal away."
Krupp noted cases where there were widespread reports of a sighting during the day were rare.
Officials from Vandenberg Air Force Base and Edwards Air Force Base say the streak may have been a meteorite that burned up in the atmosphere.
Investigators are still looking into the incident.
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