meteor
Fort Smith - A loud boom sounding similar to an explosion rocked the quiet western Arkansas night. No police or fire responded to an accident scene though. So what did Northwest Arkansas and River Valley residents hear? 5NEWS investigated and found a logical explanation.

Not only did residents in our region hear the massive boom, one from Spiro and several from Beaver Lake reported seeing yellow and green flashes of light. A spokesman for NASA says he's not aware of what it was but didn't disagree with the theory that a meteor might be to blame.

Calls started pouring into the Fort Smith P.D. between 8:30 and 9 Sunday night.

"Have ya'll had any reports of anything blowing up or an explosion or anything?" One man said when he called into Fort Smith Police. "We heard an explosion and the house shook," another woman reported.

Eureka Springs Police took several calls from residents near beaver lake who reported seeing yellow and green streaks like these. Meanwhile, dispatchers and police were puzzled about what it could be.

"We can't find anything we checked all over," a Fort Smith dispatcher told authorities at Fort Chaffee.

On spaceweather.com a Spiro, Oklahoma man reported seeing quote 'several taurid fireballs'. With human explosions ruled out as a possibility, UA expert Professor Derek Sears says a solar source may be to blame.

"It is feasible for large meteors to make sonic booms," Sears told 5NEWS.

Basically, a meteor is bright trail that appears in the sky when space debris burns and gives off light.

"Sometimes if it was a really big object it would stay around for 10, 20 seconds," Sears said. "If it was a fairly small object and it's burning up high in the atmosphere it could just be a flash."

But while meteor expert Derek Sears admits the fireballs may have been taurids, he says leonids are more likely. Sears says they are bigger, stronger meteors that come from the constellation Leo, not Taurus.

Interestingly enough, Sears says the event was so big that it may have had nothing to do with either the taurid or leonid showers. He says it could simply have been a random event. According to Sears it would take at least three separate videos of the fireball to know for sure.