NORTH CAROLINA — Did a meteor cross the sky in our area early Friday morning? The American Meteor Society received reports from as far west of Kentucky and as far east as Wilmington.
Several viewers have shared photos and videos with us showing the sky flashing bright around 1 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.
The viewers live outside of Charlotte in counties that include Watauga, Avery, Caldwell, and Lincoln counties. Most reports came from the Boone area, but the viewers live as far west as Tennessee and as far east as Rowan County.
Jennifer Pruitt captured video near her home in Burke County as the bright light raced across the sky. Just a few miles away, Tim Duncan was at work near Hudson on his break while sitting in his SUV when he saw it.
“I posted something on Facebook because maybe I was going crazy, and then when lunch was over, 10 to 15 people were talking about it,” Duncan elaborated.
More than 150 miles away, Glenn Sparks was driving eastbound along Interstate 40 when he saw the light racing across the sky toward North Carolina.
“Multiple explosions and it went through multiple colors. It started kind of white and green and then faded into these yellows and oranges. It was amazing,” Sparks explained.
Dispatchers in Rowan County told Channel 9 they got a call about a plane crash at that time but didn’t find one. They said they believed it had something to do with the meteoroids.
Dr. Daniel Caton, a professor of physics and astronomy at Appalachian State University, believes it was most likely a large meteor about the size of a refrigerator, but he hasn’t ruled out it being something else.
Caton showed Channel 9′s Dave Faherty a still image of the possible large meteor, describing it as a fireball. But he hasn’t ruled out that it could be space debris that reentered the atmosphere.
Caton said he heard an explosion, too.
“I was just getting in bed around 1 a.m., 1:15 a.m., and I heard this explosion. To me, it sounded like a bomb,” Dr. Caton said. “And I’ve never heard a bomb but that’s what I’ve heard it sounds like in war news. I think it probably exploded and it’s chemical vapor and dust and not a piece of rock anymore.”
Caton said we’re not in a meteor shower right now, but said a rogue meteor can come in at any time.
The American Meteor Society said it received reports from over 100 eyewitnesses in Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama who claimed to have seen the bright fireball.
The fireball was also detected by several cameras in the region.
The American Meteor Society said an analysis of the available data indicates that the fireball was first seen at an altitude of 45 miles above Piney Flats, Tennessee, moving at 31,300 miles per hour.
The object, an asteroidal fragment weighing nearly 1000 pounds and just over 2 feet in diameter, managed to make it to an altitude of 20 miles above the North Carolina town of Altapass before disintegrating.
The breakup produced an energy of 10 tons of TNT, which generated a pressure wave that propagated to the ground, causing the booms heard by many eyewitnesses, according to the American Meteor Society.
(WATCH BELOW: NC man thinks debris that crashed onto his home came from space)
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