Mysterious light seen in Southwestern sky 9/14/2011

(CNN) -- What exactly was seen in the skies across the Southwestern U.S. Wednesday night? Was it a meteor, a falling satellite or, perhaps, something more mysterious?

A streak of light that some are describing as a fireball, was seen shooting across the night sky and law enforcement and media from Phoenix to Los Angeles to Las Vegas were fielding calls of the reported sighting.

Lt. Justin Griffin of the Maricopa Sheriff Department in Arizona was trying to guess what the strange light was.

"Believe it was a meteorite traveling from north to south across Maricopa County," Griffin said. "The 911 call center received a flood of calls."

Griffin said there were no reports of impact or damage.

"People are, indeed, reporting they saw a light head from west to east across the sky. We got reports from CHP and the FAA about callers seeing the light. It is reasonable to say that it may be a meteor," Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service told CNN affiliate KCAL.

There are no reports of aircraft incidents across Southern California, said FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor.

The sighting quickly became a hot topic on a number of social media websites with most asking, "Did you see it? What was that?"

NASA officials announced this week the now-defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is expected to fall back to Earth in the coming weeks.

There was no word on whether what was seen Wednesday was that satellite.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/09/15/southwest.strange.light/index.html

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Arizona
• California
• nevada
• Asteroid
• Meteor
• UFO
• Fireball
• 9/14/2011
• Aliens
• Space
• NASA

[HardRokMiner]

Calm down chicken littles...it was a Nasa satelite falling from space. Watch the news sometime. Its been expected for days

[TheEthereal420]

@HardRokMiner

UARS is still in orbit and not scheduled to come down until the end of the month.

Watch the news sometime.

[TheEthereal420]

Not a problem @getfrog

There's people out there in Arizona and Cali saying that they saw 'black helicopters' trailing whatever this was.

@ kingkevinshelton

It'll be hard to say anything else then what people think at this point for the government or whomever.....reports that it zig zagged and videos showing movement as such...might point to something else other than a space rock

[getfrog]

So... wanna explain what all the people were gasping about in the video? Were you at a High School football game and they were chattering about the game... or where they all gasping about the amazing light in the sky...? I'm not even sure this is the same meteor in the news and it's possible, this may be an older video, that was uploaded to get some adsense revenue coming in while all the hype is going on. A little more data about the video please.

[TheEthereal420]

@getfrog Video is from CNN. All I did was upload it.

[DuffMan790]

@kingkevinshelton Messing with our heads i guess, earthquakes, volcanoes, wars, industrial disasters, financial meltdown, revolutions & strange lights in the sky. The recent ridiculous amount of films & tv shows about alien invasions plus the likes of Hilary Clinton & the Pope banging on about ET earlier this year would lead me to believe that a big show is just around the corner...this cant all be just coincidence.

[Nanozism]

@TheEthereal420 It's scheduled to come down on the 23, or is supposed to.

[theonetense]

Its a huge firefly

[geovs20]

Yeah dont watch the news or youll end up like this sheepling, brainwashed!

[look2christ777]

@DuffMan790 Well said, good sir. Well said.

[alexvidmaster]

@HardRokMiner douchy dirty tampon....

still in orbit today 4 days later

[alexvidmaster]

@HardRokMiner douchy dirty tampon....



[htsk91]

@HardRokMiner Idiot

[bishlives]

@HardRokMiner over a populated area course!!!

[bishlives]

@HardRokMiner over a populated area course!!!

[IIZODIIAC]

@HardRokMiner NO it isnt, thats impossible.