A loud boom and a bright light moving rapidly across the sky of North Escambia County Saturday night generated hundreds of phone calls from concerned citizens. Some said the boom shook houses and rattled windows from Baldwin County in Alabama, across northern Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida and Escambia County in Alabama.

Some also said they saw fire streaking across the sky. Bill Cooke, a scientist with NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama, said it was likely a meteorite the size of a basketball that was moving at 56,000 miles per hour when it broke apart in the earth’s atmosphere.