No, it was not another end-of-the world scenario. Meteor streaks witnessed by millions of Americans living in the East Coast and two Canadian provinces turned out to be a yard-long rock that entered the Earth's atmosphere on Friday evening at about 8 p.m.

The light spectacle was seen in 13 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, according to the American Meteor Society.

One witness described the meteor streak as a thin streak of blue-greenish-white light that lasts about eight or nine seconds and then disappeared. The society had verified over 300 witness sightings and another 100 reports pending review.

A fireball, according to the society, is a meteor brighter than Venus and could even be brighter than the Sun. They are small particles from the solar system than burn from friction upon entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Based on the fireball's likely trajectory, it was moving east from eastern Pennsylvania and across New Jersey, passed south of New York City then over the Atlantic Ocean.

There were no reports of any landing sites or crash sites for the fireball, said Chip Guy, communications director for the Sussex County Government. Dam Satterfield, meteorologist of WBOC-TB, said the meteor appears to have broken into three pieces and dissipated quickly. There are also no reports on 911 of any damage caused by the fireball.

The meteor streak may likely be another reason for Doomsday prophets to predict another Armageddon and link the Friday event to the 55-foot-wide rock that hit Chelyabinsk in Russia recently as well as the warning by a former NASA astronaut, Charles Bolden, last week that the U.S. could not defend itself from an asteroid hit that impacted Russia, and there is a 30 per cent chance of such asteroids hitting the planet within the century.

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