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An apparent fireball that streaked across Prince George's skies Sunday evening, startling and alarming many residents, is now believed by experts to be a meteor and not a fallen Russian rocket.

County residents and people throughout Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina witnessed the phenomenon, according to news reports.

"In all likelihood, it was a naturally occurring bolide, or fireball, an exceptionally bright meteor," Geoff Chester, public affairs officer at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday. "A fireball is just a really bright meteor."

On Monday, it was believed that a second-stage Russian rocket booster that was scheduled to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere had exploded, Chester said.

However, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the rocket booster decayed somewhere east of Taiwan about an hour and 10 minutes after the reported fireball was seen, Chester said.

"It's still a pretty amazing coincidence that a natural phenomenon duplicates what this thing could have been," Chester said. "Science has to point to a more natural phenomenon than a manmade [occurrence]."

At least six alarmed Prince George's residents called in the sighting to 911 operators around 9:45 p.m. Sunday, according to Mark Brady, a spokesman for the Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department.

The area was thoroughly searched by multiple units, and no fires or damage were found, he said.

Brandywine caller reported seeing "a ball of fire coming from the sky," at Missouri Avenue and Route 301, according to a 911 transcript.

The second call, received seconds later, reported bright lights in the sky at Ardmore Road and Jefferson Street in the Landover area, Brady said.

At the same time, a caller at Fowler Lane and Whitfield Chapel Road in Lanham reported seeing a greenish fire silently fall from the sky.

Also at the same time, a 911 caller on the Capital Beltway near Route 50, John Hanson Highway, reported seeing a ball of fire coming down from the sky near the tree line.