‘Huge’ Fireball with Sonic Boom Over Northeast U.S. and Canada Caught [Videos]
A fireball that the American Meteor Society described as “huge” lit up the sky over the Northeast early Tuesday.
The society said it received videos and over 160 reports of the fireball, which was spotted around 1:50 a.m. Most reports were from Maine but some came from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as parts of Ontario and Quebec.
One of the videos of the fireball was captured by the dashcam of a Portland, Maine police cruiser.
In a Facebook post, the Portland Police Department said Sgt. Tim Farris and Officer Graham Hults were parked and on the lookout for speeding drivers when they saw the light show. Hults can be heard uttering, “oh my god.”
The post jokingly said that the officers observed either a meteor or an alien spaceship.
A fireball is a term for a very bright meteor, the AMS said.
@Met_CindyFitz my security camera caught this in Salisbury Ma last night pic.twitter.com/ks6a9h2hdJ
— MedicCole (@mediccole) May 17, 2016
Did you see the #fireball in the sky around 1am? This image captured by @PolicePortland of a #meteor — so cool! pic.twitter.com/rUoQvvPbv5
— Amanda Post (@ajpostnews) May 17, 2016
Fireball caught on dashboard cam of Portland, Maine police cruiser
The Sabattus, Maine, Police Department also caught the midnight meteor on a dashcam as it brightened the sky.
“One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in the night sky,” one witness from Framingham reported. “I was driving east on the mass pike heading home when there was flashing behind me, then the sky in front of my car started to light up. Looking out my left car window I could see what seemed to be a large greenish fire ball breaking apart and moving very fast heading to my best guess east or northeast almost the same direction I was going.”
This video shows the meteor from the Burlington airport, Vermont:
This next footage was captured in Plattsburgh:
Here a video compilation of this huge Fireball over Northeastern US on May 17th 2016:
Did you hear a sonic boom? Yes! And there was a 3-5 min delay from the time the fireball exploded and the very loud boom that shook homes and rattled windows.
