23-03-2025
Fireball streaks across Carolinas nighttime sky, video shows. ‘It was so quick.'
From the mountains to the coast, Carolinians reported a fireball in the night sky on Saturday, including Raleigh and Charlotte.
Tiffany Nash Effinger of Bakersville in the N.C. mountains provided a photo and five-second video of the mysterious streaking fireball to the American Meteor Society.
The society received a total of 17 reports of the fireball from people in the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia.
'It might've had a trail but it was so quick,' a woman from Wendell east of Raleigh reported.
'It was very bright,' a Fort Mill woman said. 'The center was glowing white.'
The fireball had a 'trail of bright light, green light,' a woman from Nebo in the mountains said.
A Virginia man said the fireball was orange and yellow, 'very large,' and 'looked like it was going to hit the ground.'
A man in Galax, Virginia, said he, too, was spooked. 'It was significant size and flash in the sky,' he said. 'Worried me for a few minutes.'
On Jan. 30, at least 19 people from the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland reported seeing a mysterious fireball in the night sky, according to the society.
They included a Lake Norman man who reported seeing the fireball darting 'from up right to down left' in the skies above Cornelius for 1.5 seconds at 8:46 p.m., according to the man's report on the society's website.
The society encourages people to report anything they see that's 'bright and fast' in the sky and may look like a shooting star. 'Report it: it may be a fireball,' society officials say.
Filing a report is important because it alerts the society 'to potentially scientifically significant events that occur, and contributes to the general database of knowledge about meteors.'
