While most of the Metroplex was asleep early Monday a fireball shot across the sky, startling those who were still awake.

"It was huge," said Austin Babek, 18, who observed the light show from outside his south Arlington home. "It actually scared me it was so big."

Babek said he and a friend saw the fireball at 12:56 a.m. He said it lasted about five seconds and was bright orange with a long blue and green tail.

"I've seen shooting stars before but never anything like this," he said.

In an e-mail to the Star-Telegram, Lynda Edwards of Fort Worth described it as "so bright I could see it through the branches and leaves of my large pecan tree. It emerged on the other side of the tree and burnt out in the northwest sky."

Ron Dilulio, planetarium and astronomy lab director at the University of North Texas, is out of town on a field trip, but said based on descriptions, it was "more than likely a meteor."