By Michelle Costa, Local News 8 Reporter

POCATELLO - Tuesday night, around midnight, normally dark skies were lit up by a huge burst of light.

Many locals may have seen the Leonid meteor shower and wondered what it was.

A meteor shower like none other.

“It was really cool,” said Tanner Gragg, ISU, Freshman.

Hundreds of meteors entering the earth's atmosphere.

“There were lots of flashes,” said Max Well, ISU, Freshman.

And then a bright flash of light caught on Local News 8's surveillance cameras.

"It was a huge bright flash of light. The biggest one I've ever seen. I'm betting that on the ground you could have seen that burst of light for 350-400 miles in any direction,” said Martin Hackworth, ISU, Physics Professor.

And it seems many students at Idaho State University witnessed it.

"There was a bright flash in the sky. I thought it was lightning and when I looked outside there were no clouds, nothing. I had no idea what it was. But, whatever it was. It lit up the whole sky,” said Max Well, ISU, Freshman.

"There was a lot of stars and they were shooting across the sky and some of them were very big. Some of them almost took the entire span of what I could see. It was pretty beautiful,” said Tanner Gragg, ISU, Freshman.

"All of the sudden out of nowhere, the whole sky just lit up and we didn't know anything was going to happen and we didn't know what was going on. It was really, really bright. It was like a spotlight just went right on us,” said Anthony Marshall, ISU, Freshman.

Those who saw the meteor shower describe it as lasting for several seconds and they said the entire sky was lit up, making it look like daytime.

"It basically was like looking at the sun for a few seconds,” said Hackworth.

ISU Physics Professor, Martin Hackworth, explained meteor showers happen every night, just not to this magnitude.

"It occurs every year around the same time because the Earth passes through a tail of a Comet. The fragments that open the Earth's atmosphere, called meteors, generally burn up. And that's what you see as a meteor shower. You see the flame trails going across the sky. The big bright burst that occurred last night was a particularly large fragment that exploded above Northern Utah,” said Hackworth.

Several hundred miles away, but close enough to see everything.

Hackworth believes there will probably be some more showers on Wednesday night and for the next few days.

Normally, these are white fragments in the sky.

Random trivia: Did you know every day 6 tons of dust falls to the earth's surface? During a meteor shower that number goes up.

Click here to watch Twitter video from Utah

Link to local blog - Idaho Falls Today

If you have any pictures or video of this meteor you would like to share, you can send it by e-mail to weather@localnews8.com.