1 OF SEVERAL PHOTOS OF OBJECT SENT TO TV STATION.
PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) –
Something in the sky Wednesday morning had people in the Portland metro area looking up and asking, “What is that?”
The Fox 12 newsroom received several photos of objects passing through the sky above Oregon shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday.
One FOX 12 viewer wrote she noticed “a strange line in the sky” in Beaverton.
“As it continued down, the trail behind it started to spread out as you can see in the pictures. Then it lit up like a fireball,” she wrote.
Another witness on Marine Drive said he spotted three objects in the sky around 7:15 a.m.
“I ran inside to grab my camera after I saw the first two and when I came out this one was breaching our atmosphere,” he said.
Jim Todd, OMSI’s director of space science education, said some of the photos seem to depict an explosion. That would indicate it’s a fireball. However, one thing is missing for that to be the case.
“So far, there is no indication there was a sonic boom,” he said.
Todd said it could also be a contrail that formed behind an airplane. He said what looks like an explosion in the photos could actually be the rising sun reflecting off a cloud layer.
“The verdict is still out whether it was a fireball or a contrail,” he said.
Just three weeks ago, a fireball was reported above the Pacific Northwest and investigated by the American Meteor Society.
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