Fireball lights up skies over US capital

Witnesses in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia say they saw a fireball streaking across the sky on Saturday evening.

6:16 PM on 1/30/2016

January 31, 2016

Witnesses say a possible fireball has been seen in the sky above Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Video captured by Alexander Salvador on a dashcam at 6:17 p.m. Saturday shows a streak streaming through the sky above Falls Church, Virginia. Observers described it as "huge" and "very bright" but then noted it fizzled, disintegrating into fragments.

According to NASA, a fireball is an unusually bright meteor that reaches a specific brightness.

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There were hundreds of fireball sightings reported to the American Meteor Society, which tracks fireballs, across the northeast. The organization encourages eyewitnesses to log a report with a description on its website.

So far, there have been no reports of any fragments hitting the ground and no official word on what the object was.

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