Nov. 04--A mysterious fireball spotted over Chicago ended up being just a flashy publicity stunt.
At least nine people reported seeing a fireball light up the sky Monday evening, according to the American Meteor Society, a group that tracks sightings around the country. They described a bright white-yellowish object with a tail moving slowly across the sky about 6:30 p.m.
What they saw were three skydivers -- members of the Red Bull Air Force -- with flares shooting from their shoes as they drifted toward North Avenue Beach, according to the company.
The stunt was staged to promote the "Red Bull Art of Can" exhibit in Millennium Park, according to the company.
To Steve Sobel, it looked "kind of like a comet or something."
"I looked up and I just saw this bright light," Sobel told WGN-TV. "With the naked eye you could see fragments coming off the back of it like it was something burning up."
Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, said the organization initially thought the object was a meteor or some sort of "space junk" burning up in the atmosphere. But many more people would have reported that, and the group finally figured it was something man-made.
About an hour earlier, the American Meteor Society received more than 200 reports of a bright object streaking across portions of the eastern seaboard. Those sightings stretched from Maryland to North Carolina to Georgia, and even as far west as Ohio, and the society said that object was definitely a fireball -- not a stunt.
