Videos Show Likely Meteor Streaking In DC, Virginia Sky

WASHINGTON, DC — More than 300 people saw a possible meteor blazing across the District of Columbia and northern Virginia sky and along the East Coast on Tuesday night (see videos below). Videos captured the possible meteor as it zipped over towns and apparently burst into a fireball around 10:57 p.m. on Tuesday.

The American Meteor Society said it received 360 reports about a meteor/fireball seen over Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia.

People in the D.C./NoVA region reported seeing a meteor late Tuesday night. Social media users said it looked like a bright fireball streaking across the sky.

The American Meteor Society, a clearinghouse for fireball reports, listed dozens from Maryland and Virginia. Reports were also received at about the same time from other parts of the country.

Did you see last night's fireball over DC and NoVA? Tell us about it in comments.

The preliminary trajectory shows that the fireball was traveling from north to south and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in front of Bethany Beach, Delaware.

Reports from residents in DC, Arlington, McLean, Falls Church, Alexandria, Fairfax, Vienna, Ashburn, Leesburg and Reston were among the many DC area meteor sightings logged by the AMS.

Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day, the AMS says. Most of these occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and many are masked by daylight.

Here are some of the images captured of the meteor:

Includes reporting by Patch Editor Tom Davis