Bright light and thunder over Michigan blamed on a rare meteor
Experts blame a bright light and what sounded like thunder in the sky above Michigan on a meteor. Check out a video of the incident below.
The American Meteor Society says it received hundreds of reports of a fireball Tuesday night over the state, including many in the Detroit area. Reports also came in from several other states and Ontario, Canada.
“All of the sudden, the whole yard started getting brighter, kind of yellowish-orange, like a flashbulb, then got black,” Milford resident Mike Tarkowski told The Detroit News. “It was something big and it was something up in the air.”
The American Meteor Society says the reports suggest a space rock penetrated deep into the Earth’s atmosphere before it broke apart.
The U.S. Geological Survey added that it registered as a 2.0 magnitude earthquake in Michigan.
Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office told The Detroit News it was “definitely a meteoroid” and a rare sight for Michigan.
He estimated the meteoroid appeared to have been about one or two yards across, weighed more than a metric ton and traveled 40,000 to 50,000 miles to Earth.
“Over Michigan, they’re rare,” he said. But elsewhere on the planet, “they happen a few times every month.”
Other states where people reported seeing a fireball included Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.