I witnessed a similar event in Whitehorse in the early 2000's.
The bright flash and orange flaming tail left a streak of smoke or cloud in the sky for hours. Looked like a contrail of a plane.
The meteor struck in the early morning hours when the sky was still dark. The two flashes I saw lit the sky up like it was daylight. I was looking out
my window at the time and saw everything clearly in the flash. In fact, it was so bright, it actually triggered the photo sensitive cells of the
street lights to turn off!
Now as I observed its descent until it went behind the mountain across the valley from where I was, I couild have sworn it was going to land in town
(about 25 km away). As it turns out, it in fact landed hundreds of km`s away.
Point being, they can be very deceptive to someone observing on the ground.
Here`s the story of the one I saw
www.space.com...
and this one describing the scientific process after the event
science.nasa.gov...
It really is an incredible experience to see. I`m glad so many of my neighbours got to witness this event.
[edit on 20-11-2008 by solo32_98]