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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Yellowknife woman who described seeing a "fireball" fall from the sky last month likely saw debris from an asteroid, according to experts.

Agatha, who did not wish to give her last name, said on Dec. 27 she was out with her son at a hill directly behind Northern United Place, around 3:30 p.m. "I looked up in the sky," she said.

"This light shot down from the sky ... It was really weird."

Agatha said she initially thought it was a shooting star but then at the end of the beam of light there was "a fireball."

She said the fireball lasted about a minute and was gone by the time she had run up the hill to get a better look.

"I'm sure someone else must've seen it," said Agatha, who did not report seeing the object to any authorities.

"Whatever the heck that was, I don't know. I haven't stopped thinking about it."

The Yellowknife airport said it did not know anything about a meteor of any type. But Alan Hildebrand, co-ordinator of the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre at the University of Calgary, said it is possible no one else saw the fireball and it then went unreported.

"It's usually relatively straightforward to tell the difference between a natural (fireball) versus spacecraft debris," said Hildebrand.

He said a fireball that is natural, like a meteor, would move at a much quicker speed while a piece of spacecraft debris would not be as fast.

Fireballs that are seen moving very fast "are typically asteroidal debris," said Hildebrand. If an asteroid or a smaller meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere and ignites, leaving a visible streak of light, it's termed a meteor.

Hildebrand said he would guess from the description that it was asteroid debris that Agatha saw. He said the centre did not have any reports come in from that date and area.

"If anyone sees a fireball we have an online web form they can fill out," said Hildebrand.