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© FXhome.comGreen fireball illustration
Reports stream in from Southern California and Nevada; experts say it's a meteor

People from San Diego to Los Angeles to Las Vegas reported seeing a large, greenish, fiery object shooting across the sky Wednesday night.

"I saw something that looked like a falling star but it must have been a fireball in the atmosphere," one witness told NBCLA. "It was huge. It had a green glow in front of it and a white tail. It like green fireworks going across the sky."

Witnesses said they saw the fireball around 7:45 p.m. PT (10:45 p.m. ET).

The Federal Aviation Administration said they received many calls about the sky sightings. Initially, there were concerns that the fireball could have been an aircraft. But a spokesman from the National Weather Service told NBCLA that it sounded as if it was a meteor.

Experts said that a meteor is slower than a regular shooting star, and it's not unusual for it to appear to change colors.

In a Twitter update, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said that "a lot of lucky people ... saw a fireball tonight" - and pointed to a webpage listing frequently asked questions about fireballs. The report said sightings were made in Arizona as well as California and Nevada.