Fireball in the Sky

Last night I was sitting on my front porch gazing at the sky just in time to see a huge fireball blazing down into the distance and disappearing. I was pleased to have seen such an especially large and close meteor, but thought nothing more about it until this morning.

Then this came to my attention. The skies in northern Illinois lit up last night when a meteor apparently created a strange and enormous ball of fire that flashed for but a second.

See a time-lapse gif of the event here. The lines in the sky are apparently unrelated jet trails.

NBC says the fireball was reported seen from faraway points such as Milwaukee and St. Louis around 10pm last night. I saw no explosive fireball, but I did see the mother of all meteors at right about that time, so I have to wonder if there was more than one, and if what I saw wasn't the same one seen in Illinois. It has also been suggested the phenomena could be space junk re-entering the Earth's atmosphere rather than a meteor.

See video of the fireball over Wisconsin here. This is very similar to what I saw here in Louisville, but I saw no explosion-like flash.

Anyone else see this thing?

Madison County Meteor

Once when I was a kid living on the farm in Waco, KY, my father and I saw a huge red glowing ball streak down through the sky and disappear on the forested horizon. It made an audible crash, and a red glow momentarily rose the spot.

I've always wondered about that fireball from the sky, and a few years ago I decided to go poking around in the general vicinity that it appeared to have landed. I came upon this round pond that seemed uncannily like an impact crater. Unfortunately, the next time I came to the site to investigate further, construction work for homes had begun and obliterated the evidence.