© ethanrogati.comPhoto of the fireball over America, Thursday night, 27 February 2014
Comment: "Just" a bright white fireball?! Wow, talk about normalizing something that until last year was being described as "so rare it almost never happens"!
On a cold Wednesday night on the city's West Side, a veteran police officer saw something not normally seen when on patrol, Madison police said in a news release.
"The officer was parked near the Hy-Vee store at Westgate Mall when just before midnight, a large, bright white fireball pierced the cold night sky," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain.
"The object was moving extremely fast and would have without question struck the ground," the officer said in his report.
Comment: This gives you an idea how unusual this phenomenon is: it's not generally known that most fireballs do not in fact impact the ground.
A fellow officer driving on Old Sauk Road also saw the same "long fire trail," the release said.
Comment: It appears that the police officer witnessed the same massive fireball seen over the entire Eastern half of the U.S. on Thursday night. Although it can seem like these things impact nearby, they're actually burning up and breaking apart so high up in the atmosphere (most of the time!) that it's very difficult to tell what state you'll find meteorites in, let alone the next town over.