Cleveland - A meteor was seen across parts of nine states Friday night.

Many reports were made to the American Meteor Society from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and southern Ontario, Canada.

The meteor was reported around 9 p.m. as people reported seeing a streak of light headed across the night sky. The American Meteor Society website showed the meteor apparently falling over southern lower Michigan.

More reports of meteors were received Saturday night around 6:45 p.m. although none of these reports have been confirmed at this time.

The following is video from Friday night's sighting:

A scientific team from Colombia was able to trace back the explosive space rock's origins using "simple trigonometry."

It's been nearly two weeks since a blazing meteor suddenly appeared over Russia's Ural region, and exploded seconds later over the city of Chelyabinsk. The destruction it caused is well documented: $33 million in estimated damage, 1,500 injured, and zero fatalities - amazing, considering the fireball detonated with 30 times the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

But where in heaven's name did the the thing come from to begin with?

Poring over crowd-sourced footage, researchers Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin from the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, were able to use "simple trigonometry to calculate the height, speed, and position of the rock as it fell to Earth," says BBC News. More importantly, the duo was able to find out where Russia's most famous meteor was likely born.

Using astronomy software developed by the U.S. Naval Observatory, Zuluaga and Ferrin gathered enough data to trace the meteoroid's origins in outer space. The information included the meteor's relative angle to the horizon, the shadows it cast, and video timestamps of the rock's screaming descent.

Initial Meteor Sighting Reports

8 March 2013 - Jeff Massecar, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 21:15

2 seconds duration. S - N direction, I was facing west. It was a bright streak with a little bit of orange. As bright as a street lamp and it had a tail, very cool!

8 March 2013 - Gayann Reynolds, Oxford, Missouri, USA 21:15 EST

5 seconds duration - E-W direction, from my left to right. White color and orange flames. It was a bright as the moon. I saw flames!

A newly discovered asteroid the size of a football field will cruise through Earth's neighborhood this weekend, just days after another space rock made an even closer approach to our planet. The 330-foot-wide (100 meters) asteroid 2013 ET will miss Earth by 600,000 miles (960,000 kilometers) when it zips by on Saturday. The space rock flyby will come just days after the 33-foot (10 m) asteroid 2013 EC approached within 230,000 miles (370,000 km) of us early Monday. When asteroid 2013 ET passes Earth, it will be at a range equivalent to 2.5 times the distance between the planet and the moon, making it too faint and far away for most stargazers to spot in the night sky.

But the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, run by astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, will webcast a live telescope view of the space rock's flyby on Friday, beginning at 2 p.m. EST. There is no danger that 2013 ET will hit Earth, researchers say, just as 2013 EC posed no threat. But their flybys are slightly unsettling nonetheless, since both asteroids were discovered mere days ago. Indeed, many space rocks are hurtling undetected through Earth's neck of the cosmic woods. Astronomers estimate that the number of near-Earth asteroids tops 1 million, but just 9,700 have been discovered to date. Undetected objects can strike Earth without warning, as the surprise meteor explosion over Russia last month illustrated. The 55-foot (17 m) asteroid that caused the Feb. 15 Russian fireball detonated in the atmosphere before astronomers even knew it existed.

On almost any fine night, after a short watch of the heavens, we may see the well-known appearance of "shooting stars." At ordinary times these are small, are far between, and occur indifferently in all parts of the heavens; but on certain nights they show themselves in great number, and of such brilliancy as to present a spectacle of much magnificence.

- Rocky Mountain Sun, Aspen, Colorado, Sept. 30, 1882

Meteors and all matters related to astronomy fascinated people living in the Victorian era. The darkness of communities along with people's attunement to their natural surroundings made the sightings of meteors a common occurrence. Many of the magnificent sightings made their way into print, and with possibly exaggerated details.

A meteor streaked across Aspen's night sky in early November 1886. The trail of fire along its decent from the southwest over Aspen Mountain to the head of Hunter Creek caught the notice of grocer and Aspen Mayor, Bob Hardeman. The next morning Hardeman and a friend proceeded to Hunter Creek and along the way gathered accounts from others reporting a whizzing sound and the meteor's fearful velocity, which caused livestock in fields to stampede and cows the next morning to produce sour milk.

Seven miles up Hunter Creek Hardeman found a grove of timber on fire leading to a five foot deep crater containing the still hot meteorite. Extracting the meteorite with a shovel, the party dragged the 20 pound object into the creek to cool it. The Rocky Mountain Sun reported the submersion of the meteorite into Hunter Creek proved fatal to "hundreds of trout." The newspaper also reported that Mr. Hardeman "brought several of those fish to town and had them cooked and vouches for them being quite palatable with the exception of a faint taste of brimstone, which could not be eradicated without a plentiful supply of salt." Undoubtedly, the meteor's display in Hardeman's store brought attention to his establishment and an increase in business.

Chicora, PA (US) - Russia's "big bang" meteor on Friday morning caused a light burst big enough to blaze up the sky and a noise boom loud enough to shatter windows and damage buildings. While Western Pennsylvania falls into the rest of the northeastern United States as witness to periodic meteor showers and occasional one-shot spectacular celestial events, the last one that really perked up the public was nearby in Chicora, Butler County.


About 6 p.m. June 24, 1938, a huge fireball exploded over the small borough of Chicora. At first, the commotion was thought to have been caused by an explosion in a nearby building used to store gunpowder. Gathering outside their homes, citizens soon learned the spectacular sound-and-light show was caused by a meteor streaking across the early evening sky. Written accounts noted witnesses said it "sounded like thunder" and a sharp spike of light like a fireball exploding was enveloped in what looked like a huge cloud.

While there were no injuries reported, one cow at a Chicora farm was reputedly killed by a small stone pellet, perhaps part of a larger meteorite. Another anecdote suggests only the "cow's hide was injured."

Later scientific studies would show that estimates based on the meteor trajectory and its trail of smoke showed the meteor weighed about 625 tons before it entered the Earth's atmosphere. It exploded about 12 miles above the Earth's surface. Had it progressed closer to Earth before exploding, note the studies, it would have destroyed much of nearby Pittsburgh and resulted in very few survivors.

Last Saturday night (2/3 March), a bright object flying toward the earth was seen in various parts of the country. "It was seen from the city of Poznan to Grudziadz. It lit up the sky for a few seconds from east to west, and then an impact was heard", wrote a reader of Alert24.pl. "The passage of an NEO [Near Earth Object] is not uncommon", explains Jerzy Rafalski, an astronomer from Torun in an interview with Radio RMF FM.

Tasmanian police and firefighters are unable to explain the source of a beam of light which reportedly fell from the sky and formed a circle of fire in a Hobart suburb.

Early yesterday morning police and fire crews received calls from concerned residents in Carnegie Street at Claremont, who reported seeing a bright light igniting a fire in a nearby paddock.

Tasmania Fire Service officer Scott Vinen says the blaze was quickly put out, leaving an obvious burnt patch.

He says the bizarre incident has everyone baffled.

"Once we put the fire out, we kind of walked through the fire and tried to find something," he said.

"We thought a flare or something may have landed there, but we couldn't find any cause."

The Fire Service says it will not investigate further.

WDBJ7 has gotten several reports through social media of people seeing a fireball shoot across the sky Thursday night.

We have checked into the reports and found that the object, likely a meteorite, was visible from Virginia to North Carolina.

Mena Hobs saw it and posted this on the WDBJ7 Facebook page.

"Last night around 9:41 pm a huge ball of orange light in the sky. You could see it beyond Roanoke Electric Steel. It dropped below the horizon and appeared again briefly."

More than a dozen shared their story on the American Meteor Society website. The website tracks and archives fireball reports from around the country.

Meteors and fireballs are very common, and fall even during the day.

The term meteor actually refers to the streak of light caused by a piece of space debris burning up in the atmosphere. The pieces of debris are called meteoroids, and remnants of debris that reach the surface are called meteorites.

Another 'mystery boom' in the sky, this time over Vermont. The military claimed responsibility, but locals don't seem too convinced.