Green object reported in the sky over Newfoundland
Similar reports were made throughout the northeastern U.S. Wednesday
Facebook and Twitter social media sites on the northeast Avalon were busy with reports of an unidentified, green object falling in the sky over Conception Bay South Wednesday night.
"It was turquoise in colour and was rounded on the bottom and tapered to a point on top. It looked big, but it was hard to tell how far away it was. It was moving extremely fast toward the ground," said a Facebook status update from the St. John's area.
"I've read about a couple of natural phenomena now that could explain it ... something called a green fireball and a meteor —which can apparently be blue, white or green," said another one.
Did you see it?
If you have photos we'd love to see them - send them here
No one has reported an alien abduction yet … but the reports on Twitter and Facebook weren’t isolated to eastern Newfoundland.
People from many parts of the northeastern U.S. also posted reports on astronomy internet forums all evening claiming they saw a green light in the sky.
"Almost certainly it was what we call a bolide, which is a very bright, sporadic meteor much brighter than the run of the mill meteor. These things can rival the brightness of the full moon," said Chris Stevenson the St. John's Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
"One tip off — despite the fact that green is our favourite alien colour — is that this was reported as blue/green."
Stevenson said most meteors are basically large rocks the size of a baseball or maybe as large as a basketball. He said when they hit the Earth's atmosphere at several tens of kilometres per second they burn up very fiercely and very brightly.
He said the sightings Wednesday appear to be concentrated in the northeast U.S., Quebec and Ontario and Newfoundland.
"It’s not an airplane, they move more slowing," said Stevenson.
He also ruled out extraterrestrials.
"Definitely not aliens unless they are hardy little buggers that can survive very ferocious temperatures," said Stevenson.