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CNN Live At Daybreak

It's a Bird! A Plane! A Meteorite?

Aired July 24, 2001 - 07:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this morning with that streaking light over the Northeastern sky. If you didn't see it last night, odds are you know somebody who did.

From Virginia to New York, people called 911 around dinnertime with reports of giant lights in the sky and loud sonic booms. By one account, the flash of light was the size of a Jeep Cherokee. And witnesses say it landed near Williamsport, Pennsylvania. One resident describes a fireball falling into a cornfield. Fire officials are investigating a large burn mark there in the middle of that field. And here are some eyewitness accounts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED EYEWITNESS: And we saw this fiery burning refrigerator like thing flying through the sky. It was, you know, something we never saw before. And we called 911, because we were so startled to see this object, you know, like Skylab coming down towards us.

UNIDENTIFIED EYEWITNESS: There was something in the sky. And we looked. And it was kind of a ball of fire. It was just a bunch of different colors coming down through the sky. And it just came down through. And then you heard maybe some little screaming noise. And when we looked at it afterwards, it hurt our eyes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: So what was it? Well, authorities say they don't think it was a meteor shower. Instead, it was likely a different type of natural phenomenon known as a bolide, which is an explosive fireball.

Well, let's go now to ground zero for a firsthand account of the sightings. Robert Lang of our affiliate WGAL joins us from Salladasburg, Pennsylvania north of Williamsport, where the object is said to have landed.

What have you seen?

ROBERT LANG, WGAL REPORTER: Carol, we have not been to the scene yet, but it's about five miles away from here. We are at the Larry's Creek volunteer fire company is Salladasburg, Pennsylvania, which is north of Williamsport. Basically what folks who saw it, including the fire chief, said is it's basically a large patch of burned out ground. Apparently, whatever this was disintegrated on contact. They could not find any kind of debris or anything like that, except for some dust. So there are not like pieces of meteorite -- or whatever this is -- or space junk that's on the ground.

It struck last night around 6:30. A lot of folks here heard the rattling rather than saw it. And there were some windows that were damaged not too far from here and also about 12 miles down the road in Williamsport and in Montoursville. No injuries and no homes were damaged.

A lot of people said they really had never experienced anything before. Some thought it was an earthquake. Some thought it might have been a large truck driving by and maybe getting into an accident. There were a lot of emergency calls on the police scanner throughout North Central Pennsylvania and Central Pennsylvania. People thought planes -- a plane had crashed.

Well, it turned out it was this meteor shower whatever this space phenomenon that it turned out to be.

LIN: Robert, are they letting reporters close to the area? Or are they worried -- are they worried that there might be some radioactivity or anything like that?

LANG: That is one of the reasons why they have not let us by. In fact, the area is secure. They did do a cursory test last night to determine that they didn't think any radiation was coming out, but state environmental officials are going to be out here today now that it's daylight to take a look at the damage and just to confirm that.

We hope to get there a little bit later on today. The fire chief, we are told, is surrounding there right now. And they're keeping the area secure. They want to keep onlookers away.

LIN: You bet. All right -- a deep investigation out there in the corn fields of Pennsylvania.

LANG: Thank you.

LIN: Thanks so much, Robert Lang, for checking in -- Colleen.

COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: It's probably cause for a little dose of science, don't you think?

Let's find out a little bit more about this phenomenon now with CNN's science correspondent Ann Kellan.

She joins us from Boston.

Ann, what do they think this was?

ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically they called it a bolide because they really don't know what it is. It could be remnants of a comet that enters the Earth. And that's icy and watery. Or it could be an asteroid, which is rock.

But usually, it's small. And these -- if you have seen meteor showers, shooting stars, that's basically what it is, but probably a bigger thing, because usually they burn up in the atmosphere. And so this one apparently didn't and hit the ground. And that's unusual, too, because usually, because the Earth is mostly ocean, things like this land in the ocean and it goes unnoticed.

MCEDWARDS: So uncommon I guess to see them, but how common is the event?

KELLAN: Well, it's fairly common. I mean, we do see shooting stars. And we do see these little objects from outer space enter our atmosphere from time to time. I guess it's uncommon that we would see it. And that is what brought all the -- obviously, it landed in a place that was very populated, that people could see.

MCEDWARDS: Well, we know stuff from sci-fi, the stuff of horror. I mean, what -- can these things cause very much damage or are they pretty insignificant?

KELLAN: Well, usually they cause very little damage. And they go, like I said, unnoticed. But there have been times in our history way back when, when the Earth was starting to form, that it did cause some damage. And, actually, we say that a big huge asteroid hit the Earth and may have been the reason that the dinosaurs were destroyed and became extinct.

There are other times they have created large craters in the earth. There is one in Arizona. There is Sudbury, Ontario. They say that, you know, a rock hit and created what is now known as the Chesapeake Bay. So it's something that happened in the early stages of Earth, but not to the extent -- this is a minor thing. And we don't see that today.

MCEDWARDS: All right, understood. Ann Kellan, thanks very much.

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