(meteorobs) very bright mystery flash

[Ed Cannon]

This doesn't seem to me to qualify for a fireball report, 
but it was very bright.  Mainly I wonder if anyone else 
from the central Texas area might have seen it as well.

Last night (Friday evening local time) there was a very 
brief (less than one second), very bright flash in the 
sky here at about 11:23 PM (4:23 July 9 UTC).  My friend 
and I were looking in different directions, and suddenly 
the sky lit up.  He said the ground lit up to about the 
brightness of a first-quarter Moon (i.e., -7 or -8).  No 
fireball or any other trace of an after-effect was seen.  
If it had been a firework, as bright as it was we would 
have expected to hear the report, but there was no sound.  
I was drawn to turn to the southeast, but it could have 
been above my head.  To me it seemed to be white, as 
opposed to the brilliant blue I've seen with a couple of 
transformer explosion flashes -- which also laster 
longer and were down at the horizon level.

Oh, the weather was quite good for a long ways in all 
directions.  From our suburban location, the Milky Way
was faintly visible.

Ed Cannon - ecannon at mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA