But late Tuesday night, the U.S. Strategic Command says the object was likely a Russian rocket booster reentering the atmosphere.
Still, there's been a lot of speculation about what it was.
"We had a meteor shower a week and a half ago, the Geminid meteor shower. The Geminids are small particles and they have very short arcs when they come down through the sky," Chabot Space & Science astronomer Gerald McKeegan said.
After the bright light streaked across the sky, people lit up social media with videos and pictures of that fireball.
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If you took photos or videos of the mysterious light, tag your photos and videos on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook with #abc7now.