http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010723/ts/life_sightings_dc.html

Monday July 23 11:12 PM ET

Meteor Shower Reports Abound Along East Coast

By David Morgan

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Reports of a possible meteor shower flooded police and government telephone lines along the U.S. East Coast on Monday, authorities said.

The sightings of what some described as a fast-moving meteor prompted evening rush-hour motorists to pull off suburban highways west of Philadelphia.

Pilots in flight issued reports of similar sightings to federal aviation officials in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Authorities said eyewitness accounts came from upstate New York to Virginia.

``People say they saw what was perhaps a meteor shower, but there's nothing we can confirm,'' said Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) spokeswoman Arlene Salac.

A Reuters reporter saw a tapered object shaped like a trumpet bell falling diagonally through the western sky near West Chester, Pennsylvania, 20 miles from Philadelphia, at about 6:20 p.m.

The object emitted a lustrous rainbow of colors, ranging from bright yellow on its downward-pointing flared end to light green and finally rust-colored red at the upward-pointing tapered end.

Others reported seeing a triangular object or a fireball shooting through the sky.

People living near Montoursville, Pennsylvania, a rural community 130 miles northwest of Philadelphia, reported hearing a loud explosion after seeing the unidentified object. A state police dispatcher said one woman reported that the blast broke windows in her home.

There were also unconfirmed reports of people finding debris on the ground.

``It was a ball of fire,'' Mark Barbour of Syracuse, New York, told CNN. ``It looked like something you would see from the movies.''

The National Weather Service (news - web sites) reported no natural phenomena that could account for such a sight.

Police in Pennsylvania were investigating the possibility of a part falling from a plane from Philadelphia International Airport, which sometimes guides flights across the city's western suburbs. But sightings were later reported southward through Delaware, Maryland, Washington and into Virginia.

There were no reports of aviation emergencies, apart from the nonfatal crash of a single-engine plane in Calvert, Maryland, near the state's border with Pennsylvania and Delaware.

``We have no idea what it was, whether it was a meteor or what,'' said National Weather Service spokesman Curtis Carey.

-- (in@the.news), July 24, 2001