Meteor's Fireball Seen by Hundreds

Hundreds of people in New England and New York reported seeing a meteor flash through the sky at around 5 p.m. Sunday, according to the Cape Cod Times and the American Meteor Society.

While most of the sightings came from Connecticut residents, reports on the American Meteor Society website include notes from Putnam County, Hartsdale and Yonkers. A Patterson resident reported seeing it when she looked northeast, "I was indoors looking out my kitchen window when I saw the fireball."

"I thought it was a UFO," one Barnstable MA elementary-school student told the newspaper.

The "large, bright, long duration fireball" was reported by witnesses to be brighter than the moon, which is nearly full, according to Mike Hankey of the American Meteorological Society, who writes that the meteor apparently entered over southwest Vermont and headed north.  Naunet