In The Spotlite: Texas Fireball Video - Is it UFO, Meteor or ?

It streaked across the Austin, Texas, sky in one remarkable hurry, so much so that authorities initially ruled out a meteor because it was moving too fast. Austin, Texas, camerman Eddie Garcia was lucky enough to have filmed it, and now the government has ruled out space debris re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Preston Starr, who is the observatory manager at the University of North Texas, said it probably was a meteor about the size of a pickup truck with the consistency of a chunk of concrete.

Starr said objects that size enter the Earth's atmosphere only about eight or 10 times a year. This one was most likely traveling between 15,000 and 40,000 mph, which is way too fast for any type of space debris, such as debris from the recent collision of an Iridium communications satellite and a Russian military space vehicle.

The Associated Press reported that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Roland Herwig said the fireball was a natural phenomenon and not satellite debris. However, that is the exact opposite from what the FAA had initially claimed.

After the fireball first appeared the FAA had said that it possibly was caused by falling debris from the satellites. It even had posted a warning telling pilots to watch out for satellite debris after the fireball's flight had been publicized.

Starr from the Texas observatory said that the object's trajectory was not a trajectory that satellite debris would have taken. Plus Star said satellite debris would be too small and traveling much too slowly to produce a flare that was so clearly visible during the day.

"It would have looked like a blip, and nobody would be able to notice if it were a daytime entry," Starr said.

However, if you will remember the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster from February 1, 2003, the shuttle disintegrated on re-entry and the attached photo of Columbia debris clearly shows more than a blip. In fact the debris is quite clear, even clearer than the photo or the video of the fireball, and the debris also displays comet like contrails.

Perhaps the government is deliberately disseminating disinformation to mislead the public into thinking that the fireball was something other than what it really was? The question is what is the government hiding? It may be a genuine flying saucer (most unlikely), a secret government satellite that fell out of the sky or a truly Unidentified Flying Object (UFO).

Mr. Garcia may also have been lucky enough to have captured a secret military airplane or weapon that the government wants to keep hush-hush. As is the case with most UFO sightings, we will probably never know.

Watch the fireball streak across the Texas sky:

The second video is the Columbia Space Shuttle flashing across the Texas sky as it disintegrated. In this video the cameraman is following the Shuttle with his camera. If he were not this would also seem to be streaking across the sky at a terrific rate of speed.

Watch the Columbia Shuttle disintegrate: