Bright Light Shoots Across Oklahoma Sky

News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY -- News 9 received numerous reports of a bright light that shot across the Oklahoma sky Wednesday night.

Many of the reports were in western and central Oklahoma, but some people claimed to have seen the light as far east as Stillwater and Stroud. Several people said they thought it was just a shooting star, while others said they heard "buzzing" along with the light. Others said they thought it was just a firework.

Jaime Taylor was running as she does most nights, but said this night was different.

"I thought I had an orange spotlight over my head," said Taylor. "It lasted probably a good two, three seconds. It seemed like it was really slow it had glittering behind it and made almost like a fizzling sound as it went over."

The light Taylor saw was the same light Lacey Sughru saw as she was leaving a softball game near N.W. 122nd Street and Western Avenue. Sughru was about 20 miles from where Taylor was running.

"All of a sudden there was a light that went over head and we were like ‘Wow, that's weird. Was that a shooting star?'" Sughru said. "It was pretty unreal and it lasted too long to be a shooting star."

That same light also caught the interest from a number of News 9 viewers who wrote on News 9's Facebook page reporting the same light.

"I live north of Lindsay and saw it! I agree it was BRIGHT green and lasted a good 15 seconds at least," Misty Simonton Duke commented.

Misty Lyons-Moffitt from Stroud commented, "I saw it. That was no shooting star I've ever seen. It looked like something blew up and then fell from the sky. I've seen lots of shooting stars it was not anything I've ever seen."

Shandra Fesmire also wrote in saying, "I thought it was a falling star...However it was the brightest thing I've ever seen falling from the sky."

While some are still left baffled as to what the light was, at least one expert said he has a pretty good idea. Wayne Harris-Wyrick, an astronomer with over 30 years experience working at the Science Museum, said it was most likely a meteor the size of a walnut falling from space. Anything else he said is highly unlikely.

"I'm not convinced that we have seen anything that is of extraterrestrial origin. I don't doubt that they are out there, I just haven't been convinced by any of the sightings that that is what we have actually seen," said the astronomer.

Harris-Wyrick added every single day there are 20,000 pounds of debris that fall through earth's atmosphere. Out of all the meteorites that has fallen through the earth's atmosphere, Harris Wyrick said only a few people have ever been reported being hit by one.

He also said there are 75 known craters on earth that have been caused by a meteorite. The last known meteorite to hit earth causing a crater hit in 1908.