Authorities who spent four hours searching for a plane crash in northeast Ohio now think what people saw and heard may have been a meteor.

Reports Thursday afternoon of a bright light and trail of smoke in the sky and a separate call about a crashing sound in Lake County northeast of Cleveland sparked a search that involved three helicopters, several police and fire departments and the State Highway Patrol.

Madison Township police Sgt. Rick Barson says based on what the witnesses reported, investigators believed an ultralight plane had gone down. But Barson says no wreckage was found.

He says a meteor would be "highly unusual," though he says even a small one has an explosion on impact.

By nightfall, no evidence of a meteor had turned up either.