It was 7:00pm on the west coast, last Monday, the sun was still up and there was blue sky. I was on my deck looking towards the west. There was a sudden streak of fire about 200 to 1000 feet away, about 15 to 30 feet long, falling at about a 45 degree angle. The fire started with a white sputtering and ended with a puff of yellow fire like a candle. There was no sound and nothing collided with the ground that I heard. There was no residual smoke or ash. It didn't look like any firework I've ever seen, but it is close to the 4th of July. An online source said there was a meteor shower in the vicinity, peaking last Thursday. Was it a meteor? It looked a lot like meteors that fell in Russia recently, but much smaller and closer.
The description sounds like a meteor. They aren't as close as you think though. They are roughly 200,000-300,000 feet up in the atmosphere even when they look like they are just a few houses over.
No. It can't be. If it were moving fast enough to burn up, then it would have done so as soon as it encountered the atmo. There is no physical way a meteor can make it to within a mile of the ground and only then start to burn up. What makes you think it was that close? How can you judge the distance? Note that the lack of sound is a strong indicator that it was much farther away than it may have seemed.
Other people probably did see it. Most meteors are very small (grain-like). The more noticeable ones can appear like a bottle rocket that was just shot off by a neighbors a few houses over. It's very deceiving. Others, of course, just appear as a brief point of light shooting across the sky ("shooting star").
ive seen a couple of those before hitting the upper atmosphere, fairly small super high speed then exploding as they hit the lower atmosphere or explode from the pressure build up as the remaining material gets to flash point etc. when the sun or moon is in play it can do funny things to your concept of distance and focal length due to colours etc.. not going into more detail.
