Experts say a meteor that lit up the sky over Alberta likely burned up before reaching the ground.

The bright flash of light was spotted all over northeastern Alberta around 8 p.m. Tuesday.

"I was just out for an evening walk ... and I saw it going across the sky and it was dropping," said Lana Goguen of Bonnyville. "It was still quite a distance away south of Bonnyville. As it was streaking through it was kind of an orangy-reddish colour and it had a small trail, but it wasn't the long, streaking trail."

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's Bruce McCurdy said he received several reports as well, from Edmonton and Vegreville.

"We got some pretty decent reports from knowledgeable observers who said it was a very nice, bright meteor, bright enough to be classified as a fireball - meaning as bright or brighter than Venus, but only about that bright - and almost certainly not something associated with anything big enough to make it to the ground," he said.

Both McCurdy and Goguen said the meteor, while impressive, paled by comparison to the one that lit up the Alberta sky before thousands of its pieces landed around the Saskatchewan-Alberta border in November.

"It wasn't as bright," Goguen said. "I don't think it was as big, but it was big enough that it was well and clearly visible to the naked eye."