I saw something streak across the sky. What was it?

>Gentlemen:
>
>Is this the right department to write to in regards to a strange
>phenomenon I saw on August 13, 1999 at approximately 2030, give or take
>a few minutes? Anyway, I was sitting on my back porch in Healdsburg,
>Ca., looking for the star showers which are beginning to be visible this
>time of year. All of a sudden a brief flash of maybe one second appeared
>almost directly overhead, or at ll:30 to the West - Southwest. It was
>the size of maybe a dime held up, blue white in color. It was not a jet,
>since it was stationary, and much too large for any lights of an
>airplane, and much too large. Did anyone else see, and report this? I
>never saw anything like this in my life.
>

Hello,

To be honest, I do not know what you saw. It is possible that you saw a
bolide, which is an exploding meteor. These are rare, but are observed
often enough that your seeing one would not be exceptional. This would be
a brief, bright flash, with a few meteors appearing to shoot out from the
point of origin.

Otherwise, I'm afraid I do not know what you saw, and I haven't heard any
other reports of such an object.

Thanks for writing.

Sincerely,
Kurtis Williams

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