East Texas
METEOR STREAKS
ACROSS EAST TEXAS SKIES
By: MARK COLLETTE, Staff Writer July 08, 2004
ATHENS - As a shining scrap of space stuff soared over East Texas skies Wednesday night, a different spectacle slithered its way into existence,
leaving behind another kind of darkness.
At about 9 p.m., when callers started flooding law enforcement agencies with reports of a fireball in the sky, about 4,000 customers of Trinity Valley
Electric Cooperative in Henderson County lost power.
But celestial providence was not to blame, according to Trinity Valley spokesman Jerry Boze. He said a snake wormed its way around protective guards
at a power substation, met an untimely death and plunged areas around Brownsboro and Chandler into darkness for about an hour.
"The dispatch manager said it must have occurred just about the same time the meteor shower come over," Boze said.
The meteor, a blazing, pulsating ball of brilliant white, green and red, prompted calls from a five-state region.
"The thing was seen from Memphis through eastern Oklahoma as far north as Tulsa and down to the Houston air route center," said John Clabes, a
spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
"I never saw anything that large fall out of the sky," said Jeff LaCroix, who spotted what appeared to be a fireball over the Fort Worth sky. "It
traveled all the way across the sky until it burned itself out close to the ground."
Clabes said the spotting was obviously a meteorite. "I think it's probably a shower. Instead of one, it's probably several," he said.
A spokesman for the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said the sightings were not tied to a weather event.
Dallas television station WFAA posted video footage of the meteor on its Web site, www.wfaa.com.
The video was captured on a police officer's dashboard camera during a routine traffic stop. The meteor appears to pulsate as it changes colors.
Boze, who called the snake's timing "purely coincidental," wasn't sure what kind of snake it was.
"But it don't take much of one to cause a big problem," he said.
Mark Collette covers Southern Smith and Upshur counties. He can be reached at 903.596.6303. e-mail: news@tylerpaper.com
©Tyler Morning Telegraph 2004
The lights go out at the same time as the meteor is seen? And it's due to a snake? I'm originally from East Texas (Tyler to be exact) and I find
this to be pure hoakum.
Something strange is going on here.
joey
Dallas police have video of the meteor! 
