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VIDEO: Apparent meteor lights up the sky

Witnesses see bright flash near Battlefords
Reported by Jamie Nye
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The sky lit up near North Battleford just before 10:00p.m. Tuesday night.

Witnesses from Alberta to Saskatoon went to twitter to say they saw the bright flash somewhere between Lloydminster and Saskatoon.

One witness describes seeing "a very bright blue light flash in the Wilkie area" shortly before 10p.m.

Another News Talk Radio listener who was driving near Martensville tells us how the sky lit up suddenly and describes seeing "a ball of fire."

A sky watcher in Calgary who had a camera pointed skyward caught the flash NE of Calgary and posted it on youtube.

Callers describe what they saw

Witnesses of the apparent meteorite called in to John Gormley Live to discuss what they saw Tuesday night.

Karen said she saw something while drivng west through Lawson Heights in Saskatoon.

"It was a streak but a narrow solid streak," she said adding it was something she recognized.

"You know the first thought was that it was a plane and then I watched it the whole fifteen seconds and realized 'no, this is a meteorite'," she recalled.

Back in 2008, she saw a meteor after picking up her son from the airport.

Expert requesting video to narrow down location

Alan Hildebrand with the University of Calgary and the Candian Fireball Reporting Centre said the meteor probably landed near Rockhaven Saskatchewan but no one has narrowed down the location. Rockhaven is south of the Battlefords, near Turtleford.

"People in that area have reported seeing the fireball almost overhead, but I don't know that anyone has gone out and started interviewing eyewitnesses there to really narrow it down," Hildebrand said, explaining that this technique is used to find the location of meteors.

He estimated that the meteor started out at 100 kilograms and traveled from the northeast to the southwest.

"The videos of course show these big flashes which are the explosions as the rock is coming to pieces so each one of those will make a boom," he said, confirming why some people may have heard the meteor before they saw it.

Hildebrand added that any businesses in the Battlefords area with security cameras should check the footage around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday night.  Any footage of the fireball or even the flash could help him narrow down the location of the meteor. He is asking anyone with information to or video to contact him at the University of Calgay Fireball Reporting Centre.

Edited by News Talk Radio's Adriana Christianson with files from Kelly Bitner