BALTIMORE -- The National Weather Service said Monday there is no evidence of any naturally occurring phenomenon to explain bright lights in the eastern sky that prompted hundreds of calls to the service and emergency officials.
Callers from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina described brilliant, streaking lights followed by an explosion-like sound at about 9:45 p.m. Sunday.
One 11 News viewer in Carroll County e-mailed to say she "spotted a large fireball in the western sky. It started out being about star brightness, then increasingly got brighter and greener. As it got green, it had an orange sparkling tail...We saw it go almost all the way to the ground before losing sight of it in the trees."
A WBALTV.com visitor who was in Durham, N.C., wrote the following: "I remember seeing something greenish and changing colors. It was leaving a trail (not sure of the color). I never saw it hit the ground either because it faded, got covered by trees, or burnt out."
Another wrote: "I was driving South on Interstate 83 between 9:30 and 10:00 (Sunday) night when my wife and I both saw a streaking green light fall from the sky. It looked like a shooting star, but it was definitely falling to the ground and not shooting across the sky."
Virginia residents from Hampton Roads to Richmond reported seeing "great balls of fire" lighting up the sky in shades of yellow, white orange and blue.
Some described the explosion as sounding like thunder... More at: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/19044505/detail.html