Was it a UFO? Fire in the Sky Over Nova Scotia

'Huge ball of fire' actually meteor shower, N.S. officials say

By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG and EVA HOARE Staff Reporters | UPDATED 8:13 p.m.
Thu, Nov 18 - 7:06 PM

They feared it was a plane crash but it turned out to be a meteor shower lighting up the night sky.

Early Thursday evening, emergency crews rushed to Nova Scotia’s South Shore after getting reports that a “huge ball of fire” had fallen from the sky near Exit 16 on Highway 103.

RCMP and search and rescue officials were dispatched to the area around Italy Cross.

But after thorough checks, it was determined there had been no plane crash, Scott Burgwin of the Maritimes Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax said in an interview.

“We’re pretty sure there were no aircraft (in the area),” Burgwin said just before 8 p.m. “We think it was some sort of natural phenomenon like a meteor shower.”

The call of the “huge ball of fire” came in around 6:30 p.m. from an ambulance driver in the area, said RCMP Sgt. Brigdit Leger.

Burgwin said co-ordination centre officials checked with Moncton’s air traffic control centre and found that no planes had flight plans for that area, nor did anything show up on radar, Burgwin said.

“We have heard some reports that people saw something,” said Michelle Bishop, spokeswoman for NAV Canada in Ottawa. “We do not have at this time any missing aircraft."

Contacted earlier in the evening, Halifax International Airport Authority officials said there were no reports of any delayed flights, but said that region was outside the agency’s area.

Residents in the area contacted by this newspaper hadn’t heard anything and were curious what was going on. One woman working at a restaurant near Exit 14 said she heard two RCMP cruisers “go flying by here” around 6:45 p.m.

(pbrooks@herald.ca)
(ehoare@herald.ca)