Russian space debris causes confusion in California

US military officials have confirmed that Russian space debris was behind a streaking fireball that was spotted in the skies over California and Nevada on Tuesday.

The bright streak of light was seen moving across the night sky over south of Las Vegas and in Southern California. It was also spotted as far north in California as Bakersfield and Sacramento.

The light was seen whisking in the sky before it appeared to break up.

US Strategic Command said in a statement that the light was caused by a Russian SL-4 rocket launched Monday. The rocket’s body reentered the atmosphere somewhere above Arizona.

The Soyuz-2.1, a rocket booster, was launched from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome on December 21, delivering to the International Space Station nearly 2.5 tons of supplies, including food, fuel and compressed oxygen.

The rocket body was being tracked long before entering the American airspace, said Strategic Command spokesman Lt. Col. Martin O'Donnell. He referred further inquiries to the Russian Federal Space Agency.

According to Strategic Command, the rocket was launched on Monday. However, it was not confirmed if the rocket body survived re-entry or if it did, where it ended up.

This is while officials at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles issued a conflicting report, saying the light was in fact caused by a meteor.

The incident shared a lot of similarity with another mysterious light that caused panic and confusion among Californians in early November.

Back then, the US Navy unraveled the mystery by confirming that the light was in fact an unarmed missile fired from a Navy submarine.

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