I think it was 1989, fellow astronomy club members and myself met at our dark sky site. I had just finished setting up my scope when a bright flash made us look up. A meteor was streaking across the sky, East to West, and lit up the countryside with a bright green glow like it was daytime. It was spectacular!
Haven’t seen anything like that since. It left a smoke trail with the Milky Way as a backdrop for a good twenty minutes afterwards.
It was kind of hard to get excited about stargazing after that.