Meteor Streaks Across San Francisco Bay Area

By Paul Thomson :: 12:01 PM

With everyone on a bit of a heightened alert for huge rocks falling from the sky since the large meteor crash in Russia on Friday, residents of the San Francisco area received a bit of a scare late last night.

Astronomers believe the a fireball seen in the skies over western California was due to a meteor.

Many people reported seeing a bright flash of light around 7:45 p.m. – it apparently could be seen in Santa Rosa, Calif., as well as the nearby cities of San Jose and Morgan Hill.

It was bright green and then turned to yellow as it came closer to the ground, according to a witness posting on the Facebook page of a San Francisco-area television station.

Experts think that the object was a “sporadic meteor.” These rocks impact the Earth many times a day and can rain down 15,000 tons of space debris per year on Earth.

There is no connection known between the California meteorite, and the meteorite that struck Russia on Friday.

Below, see a video of the California meteor, taken from the dashboard camera of a car on a nearby highway: