PORTLAND, Ore. — Portlanders and other Oregon residents were treated to a rare sighting of a large meteor fireball late Monday night, according to hundreds of comments, posts and videos on social media.
The fireball was visible for about five seconds to the south of the metro area, according to multiple videos and descriptions posted on Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. Many reports described it as green, with some users adding that they saw a yellow tail.
The website for the American Meteor Society, where users can submit open-source reports of meteor sightings, logged more than 130 reports of a fireball in the sky between 10:45 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The majority of the reported sightings were in cities and towns throughout the western half of Oregon, but there were additional reports from as far north as Bellingham, as far south as Sacramento and as far east as Boise.
Based on the reports, the American Meteor Society website estimated that the meteor was moving on a northwestern trajectory and became visible as it passed above the Umpqua National Forest about halfway between Eugene and Klamath Falls — though it's worth stressing that the underlying data is crowdsourced and not verified.
