A large ball of fire streaking across the night time skies just after midnight had many Utahn's wondering what they saw early Wednesday morning.

Dozens of calls came streaming into the ABC 4 newsroom with people wondering if they saw a shooting star, others wondered if it was the end of the world, military testing, or even a UFO.
Fireball over Utah
© Gabriel Perez

People from Mona to Spanish Fork from Ogden to Bountiful all calling in a very similar sighting. To many, it looked like a large fall of fire, lightning up the sky, some say like daylight, others reported a blue like light that lasted for about 30 seconds. And many reported hearing a boom about 5 minutes later.

ABC 4 called Utah's NASA and Solar System Ambassador Patrick Wiggins who says that it was a meteor also known as a bolide. From his observatory near Stansbury Park he says the break up of the meteor occured at about 240 to 250 degrees azimuth which puts it just north of southwest. He also heard the sound of an explosion that would put the breakup of the bolide about 100 km in that direction placing it high above Granite Peak in the west desert.

We'd love to hear your stories of what you saw and what you heard from where you live. Please put your comments on our website and we'll be researching this today here at ABC4.