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Meteor dazzles Midwest stargazers

Dane County Sgt. Tim Elve said deputies were sent to at least one location in the town of Verona, where a resident suspected a meteorite might have  landed, but as of late Wednesday authorities had found no evidence of a landing.

Rumors spread Thursday that tree fires near Blue River, Wis., were the result of meteor strikes, but Fire Chief Justin Degenhardt said they simply cable duct  were flare-ups from a controlled burn.

Even so, he said, people were out looking for bits of meteor Thursday.

Anderson encouraged anyone who finds what they think might be a meteor fragment to contact a university geology department.

“Allow scientists to look at them, to study them,” she said. “These are rocks from space … To have samples here on Earth is a really big deal for scientists.”

La Crosse area residents described the event with cable trunking varying degrees of awe.

“It was streaking across the sky, leaving a trail of fire behind it,” said Anna DeMers, who watched the meteor from the UW-L campus. “My first thought was that it was a meteor … but the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded, until I heard that there plastic trunking  actually had been a meteor!”

Aaron Miller was driving on Interstate 90 near West Salem.

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