There were strange lights and "booms" from the sky last night, observed from North Carolina to Maryland:
Robert in Sunbury, NC: At 9:38 PM, I watched a meteor cross over Sunbury, NC. It was traveling from the West towards the East. My wife and our friend also saw this event. Very exciting!!!
Diana in Virginia Beach: At around 9:45 pm I was driving, almost to my house and saw the bright streak of light. It lit up the whole area. I thought it was just lightening because it branched out in the sky like lightening. Then I arrived at home, put some stuff in the house and went back out to help my roommate who was bringing stuff into the house too and that's when we both heard the explosion, but honestly, the noise was heard about 15 minutes after I saw the streak. In fact I had just finished telling my roommate that I saw some strange lightening when we heard the explosion. We thought it was fireworks or something. But the noise occurred at least 10-15 minutes after the light. Weird!
Viewer in Corolla, NC: From Corolla about 300 ft from the beach. Light seen shortly after 9:30 PM tonight. Looked like debris, the kind seen on 4th of July. Felt nothing, heard nothing, just saw the bright lite which seemed to explode in the end and disappear.
Sandi in Virginia Beach: I am commenting on the flash seen in the sky, my husband and I heard a big bang and our house shook and both our computers went crazy… all these ads and pop ups showed up and started loading web sites on it's own! One of the computers shut down. i live in virginia Beach in the Great neck area!
No one’s sure what caused last evening’s flashes in the sky.
The National Weather Service said today it has seen no evidence of any naturally occurring phenomenon to explain reports of a bright flash of light in eastern Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.
“Nothing meteorological that we can see,“ said a spokesman at the service’s regional office in Wakefield.
Reports of a bright light and in some places, an explosion-like sound, poured into law-enforcement offices across eastern Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina last night.
Mteorologist Sonia Mark at the National Weather Service’s Wakefield station said last night the phone was “ringing off the hook.“ Suffolk police were looking into “reports of great balls of fire landing on the ground.“
Mark said efforts are under way to determine the source of the disturbance.
All of the reports dealt with incidents that occurred about 9:45 p.m.
One motorist who saw the lights while driving east of the Staples Mill Road exit of Interstate 64 described it as similar to “what falls away from big fireworks” but “much bigger” and “from much higher up.“
Several calls came to Richmond International Airport, but tower personnel did not see anything unusual related to aircraft, airport spokesman Troy Bell said.
“It was very, very bright and lasted less than a second,“ said Richmond resident Jay McNamara, who was returning home with his wife on River Road when they saw an object in the southeastern sky. “It was smaller than the moon and a white or yellow color."