The assistant manager of the Super America gas station at the far northwest edge of Albert Lea was pretty sure what she saw streak across the sky Wednesday was real. Shortly after 2 p.m. Christina Hansen stepped outside to check the diesel pumps on the north side of the station. While she was outside a customer she hadnt seen for almost two weeks recognised her. Her eyes had been injured two weeks earlier, and he asked how her they were doing.
Officials may never know if the flaming object shooting through the sky Wednesday afternoon was in fact a meteor.
"We can't confirm at all what it is. There's suspicion that it was a meteorite, but we have no confirmation whatsoever" - Todd Heitkamp, warning and coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls.
Heitkamp said no one was monitoring meteorite activity over Sioux City at the time the ball of fire was spotted.
The blazing orange and yellow fireball that Minnesotans reported seeing flash through Wednesday afternoon's clear blue sky was probably a meteor. And State Patrol officials are confident that the potential meteor did not transmogrify into a wood pallet that caused a minor disruption to drivers in Rogers.
Residents in the region reported hearing a loud boom of at least a few seconds in duration early Wednesday afternoon that might be linked to a meteor sighting in the Twin Cities reported by WCCO.
Shortly after 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, people around the Twin Cities metro reported seeing a metallic or flaming ball falling from the sky. Emergency dispatchers around the metro reported calls from around the metro of people seeing the object. Calls came in from Edina, Maple Grove, Inver Grove Heights and Brooklyn Park.