High school football games under the lights remind me of the night, just before 8 p.m. on Oct. 9, 1992 when a huge meteor swept across the Middle Atlantic states. The spectacular fireball was noticed and captured on video tape by many people who were attending local football games from Virginia to New York State.

Better still, a fragment of the meteor the size of a bowling ball was recovered - after it smashed into the trunk of a parked car in Peekskill, N.Y., doing more than a little damage. The video record - and the recovered meteorite fragment - were a bonanza for scientists. Fourteen years later the video images remain some of the best documentation of a large meteor's entry into the Earth's atmosphere ever captured. If you ever see one of these "bolides" in person, you'll never forget it.

Here is a description of the event. And here is a collection of amazing video clips of the meteor in flight. I recommend the ones from Anne Arundel County, Md., Johnstown, and Saltsburg, Pa.