Expert: Fireball Over Texas Likely Chinese Craft

TYLER (AP) � A scientist says fireballs that streaked over the East Texas skies before dawn were likely pieces of a rocket booster that launched a Chinese satellite into orbit. Shanyn Beason of Beckville, about 25 miles southeast of Longview, told KLTV-TV of Tyler that she saw multicolored streaks of light shooting southeast to northwest over her head just after 3:00 Wednesday morning.

Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell tells The Associated Press that a Chinese CZ-4B rocket booster had been in a decaying orbit after lifting a satellite into orbit on May 10. It was expected to re-enter the atmosphere about the time as Beason saw the streaks of light, and McDowell says it’s highly likely they were fragments from the Chinese booster.