SPRUCE GROVE, Alta.—The mystery of what Spruce Grove residents believe was a meteorite began to unravel yesterday after an eyewitness came forward to say he’d seen a fireball shoot down from the sky.
“I first thought it was a shooting star, but it wasn’t burning out,” said Eric Whyte, who was driving southbound on Highway 2 between St. Albert and Morinville around 10 p.m. on Thursday.

“It was a big ball of fire, bright orangey in colour, and there was a big tail behind it.”
Astronomer Martin Beech said the sighting of a fireball is crucial in determining whether it was a meteorite. But he couldn’t say for sure what dropped into the frozen pond at The Links at Spruce Grove, just west of Edmonton.
Derrick Zienowicz was the first one to see the strange octopus-shaped hole in the frozen golf-course pond Saturday morning.
He immediately told his neighbours, Tina Danyluk and James Shankowski, whose house is closest to the strange marks.
They initially believed the strange marks were made late Friday night or early Saturday.
But both Shankowski and Zienowicz said it’s possible the marks have been there since Thursday night because none of them looked out their back windows Friday.
Around 10 p.m. on Thursday, Zienowicz said he felt his house shake while he was standing in the kitchen.
“It’s kinda weird. For about 10 seconds, the house shook. I said, ‘What the heck was that?’”
He now suspects it was associated with the fireball and the strange marks.
A bright burning ball with an associated sonic boom normally indicates a falling meteor, said Beech, who teaches astronomy at Campion College in the University of Regina.