The Manitoba Museum has been flooded with phone calls from people who spotted a strange object in the sky.

Resident astronomer Scott Young said the museum has received at least 100 calls about an eerie green light that appeared in the sky on Friday night. Young believes the object was either a small asteroid or a chunk of comet that shattered into several pieces after burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.

"The receptionist is doing nothing but answering calls and taking numbers right now and I think I'm up to 180 e-mails," he said. "Lots of people saw it."

Eyewitnesses from Dryden to Brandon and as far south as Duluth, Minn., have reported seeing the object.


EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS SOUGHT

Ufology Research of Manitoba, a Winnipeg-based independent centre that collects data on Canadian UFO reports, is assisting the museum in gathering eyewitness accounts to determine the object's flight path. Spokesman Chris Rutkowski said he's received more than a dozen calls so far.

"They all report seeing a brilliant blue or green light moving through the sky with a long tail," he said. "There may have been somebody who captured it on a cellphone camera."

Young said the end point of the object's flight path is somewhere in northwestern Ontario. It's not known whether any pieces reached the ground.

"The first step is to figure out the trajectory and where pieces might come down," he said. "If it's a reasonable place to go looking, then we'll look for pieces," he said.

People can send an e-mail to skyinfo@manitobamuseum.ca or call 956-2830.