A meteor shower looks nothing like a ball of fire.
No, but there is a well known phenomena that does look like a ball of fire. Strangely enough it is called a "Fireball" or a "Bolide".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolide
They can appear as a slow moving extremely large and bright red or multicoloured meteors and separate into many parts as they disintegrate in the atmosphere. In fact they look exactly like what is described in the reports here.
I have seen one myself many years ago and was dismayed to find the local paper reporting "Alien mother ship passes through atmosphere" the next day.
Fireballs do not even have to impact the earth, there is a famous film of one passing over America looking like a huge burning spaceship spitting out all kinds of debris, this object skimmed the atmosphere and returned to space.
Fortunately they are natural objects and should not be mistaken for little green men.