Fireball in the sky lights up Twitter, phone lines

A fireball created by a meteor over Virginia and Maryland lit up social media as people took to Twitter to share the news, a meteor-tracking group says. Phone lines to the American Meteor Society, a not-for-profit research organization based in Geneseo, N.Y., were swamped Thursday night with call from Virginia and Maryland, as well as from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, USA Today reported. The fireball appeared as a "momentary flash following the trail of light, but and bright and blue, which very quickly disappeared," a caller from Fairfax, Va., said. "This was the brightest shooting star I ever saw, seemed like it was coming down almost vertical," the caller said. The American Meteor Society says it classifies as a fireball any meteor brighter than the planet Venus. Another caller told the society they thought the fireball "appeared to hit the ground." The society maintains a website where members of the public who witness a fireball can report it.