Officials: Light, booming in sky likely falling Russian booster

By Stephanie Chen CNN



(CNN) -- The mysterious burst of light in the sky and loud booms witnessed Sunday night by residents along the Mid-Atlantic coastline was likely caused by a Russian rocket booster re-entering the atmosphere, said an official at the U.S. Naval Observatory. The exact cause of the flash that caused hundreds of people to call the media, local authorities and the National Weather Service was still unknown Monday afternoon. But eyewitness accounts of the color, shape and timing of the light and sound had officials at the Naval Observatory confident of the phenomenon's cause: the re-entry of orbiting space junk from the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that blasted off last week from Kazakhstan.
"An object like this will have a pretty spectacular display when it enters the atmosphere," said U.S. Naval Observatory spokesman Geoff Chester.
Monday morning after the incident, Chester said he traced the rocket booster's path and found it was hovering over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, around the time people reported seeing the light.
Sunday's mysterious flash and booms also could have been a fireball, a natural phenomenon that occurs when a rock about the size of a suitcase slams into the earth. Naval Observatory officials say that scenario is unlikely in this case, since the space junk was already orbiting in the area.
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