Bright light over North Idaho believed to be meteor

A shining flash of light that crossed North Idaho is believed to have been a meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

The light appeared 11:49 p.m. Thursday. The falling rock lit up the sky above North Idaho before streaking north by northwest. Idahoans could see the phenomenon from Shoshone, Kootenai and Bonner Counties. The meteor then crossed over the northeastern corner of Washington before vanishing over British Columbia.

The National Weather Service has not confirmed the nature of the light, but locals on the ground acknowledged the event looked like a meteor.

“It was literally daylight for a second,” one Rathdrum resident posted on Facebook.

“Saw it in Athol just before midnight,” another said. “All the windows lit up like there was a lightning flash but there was no thunder and nothing else followed.”