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Green Light Seen Over Southern California Believed To Be Meteor

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A green light that streaked across the night sky that was seen from the Mexican border to Central California was apparently a meteor or some other heavenly body falling to Earth.

The green streak lit up the night sky, and subsequently social media, when it was seen over the downtown Los Angeles area at about 10 p.m. Tuesday.

In a statement, U.S. Navy Lt. Laura Stegherr of the U.S. Strategic command said, "After investigation, U.S. Strategic Command's Functional Component Command for Space…concluded that the information provided does not correlate to any of the more than 16,000 on-orbit cataloged objects tracked and listed in USSTRATOM's Satellite Catalog and the publicly available website www.space-Track.org. Therefore, we have determined that the reentry of a man-made object did not occur at this time."

That means the green light that millions of people viewed Tuesday night was not a satellite or space junk, but probably a meteor burning up in the atmosphere as it fell to Earth.

The American Meteor Society said it received more than 70 reports about the event, described by several people as a light blue to bright green light with fragments or sparks shooting off from the tail.

(©2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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