Fireball Was Russian Spy Satellite, Experts Say (Source news.sky.com) Military experts believe a mystery object spotted streaking across the sky over the US was a Russian spy satellite. More than three dozen witnesses reported seeing a bright object that broke apart into three “rocks” with glowing red and orange streaks as it moved northward over the Rocky Mountains on September 2. Russia has denied claims that the fireball spotted at 10.30pm was a piece of the Cosmos 2495 satellite, which was designed to shoot reconnaissance photos and send them back to Earth in capsules.  But Mike Hankey from the American Meteor Society said a meteor would have burned up too quickly to be seen over such a large area, while fragments from the unidentified object were big enough to show up as a weather event on radar east of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Charles Vick, an aerospace analyst with military information website Globalsecurity.org agreed that the object was probably a piece of the Russian satellite, which was launched in May. Globalsecurity.org’s director John Pike said Russia continues to spy on similar targets to those it focused on during the Cold War. “Deployed hardware, airplanes, ships, tanks, factories, new intelligence facilities, all that stuff,” he said. “They’re looking for the same things that our spy satellites are looking for.” The US Strategic Command, responsible for American nuclear war fighting forces, confirmed that Cosmos 2495 re-entered the atmosphere and was removed from the US satellite catalogue on September 3.