Hundreds spot meteor in Bay Area

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SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Residents in California's Bay Area were treated to a rare meteor display overhead Friday night, weather officials said.

Scores of residents reported seeing the fireball streak across the sky around 7:45 p.m. Friday, KNTV-TV, San Francisco, reported. It was seen from San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Clara in the central Silicon Valley. Most reported seeing a large fireball colored yellow or green appearing as though it was plummeting to earth.

Gerald McKeegan, an astronomer at Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, Calif., said he did not see it, but based on accounts he thinks it was a "sporadic meteor." These hunks of space rock bring as much as 15,000 tons of debris to earth each year, McKeegan said.

The meteor is not related to the massive meteor that hit in Siberia, Russia, Friday injuring hundreds as the sonic boom created when the meteor struck blew out windows for miles.