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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.

  • By Associated Press

| Washington

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.

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.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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