Bright light puzzles residents

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a meteorite.

Or is it?

Residents in one northeast Albuquerque neighborhood reported seeing a bright flash in the sky Monday night and that a meteorite landed in front of their homes.

"Very bright like day turning to night," said Janice Marshall.

The mystery on La Fiesta Dr. off of Osuna began at 11:30 p.m.

"Well, the electronics went off in the house too," Marshall said.

When Marshall went outside to investigate along with other neighbors, they said they found evidence of a meteorite.

"You could see white patches going up the street," added Marshall.

University of New Mexico Professor Horton Newsom, who works as a researcher for the Institute of Meteoritics, went to check out whatever it was that people in Marshall's neighborhood thought had fallen from the sky.

"Very, very rare," said Newsom. "Maybe one (meteorite sightings) in a few hundred turns out to be real."

It turns out that bright flash that startled so many residents on La Fiesta came from above. Just not where they thought.

"Unfortunately, I don't think it's a meteorite," said Newsom.

So what is it?

Remember what Marshall said about her electronics losing power in her house?

Marshall and her neighbors thought the meteorite had hit some equipment on a power line on the way down. They found pieces of it on the street.

But a PNM spokesperson said that kind of equipment, which protects power lines from lightning strikes breaks on occasion. When it does break, it causes a flash of light and a temporary loss of power. The PNM spokesperson said that's exactly what happened just after 11:30 monday night.

Prof. Newsom thinks the rocks on La Fiesta were actually volcanic; commonly used for landscaping.

"There's no visible metal in these," said Newsom. "This is pumice that fell out of a truck I'm afraid."

For residents on La Fiesta Dr.: mystery solved.

"I didn't know what it was," said Marshall.

A lot of people also thought they saw a meteor just after 5 a.m. Monday, and they were right. Video from Sandia National Laboratories and a different sky camera in El Paso shows that meteor flying across the sky over New Mexico.

There were actually three meteors visible, but that one was the most prominent. It could be seen for four seconds.