Fireballs light up the sky over SE Michigan on Tuesday night

A loud sonic boom along with bright illumination startled the residents of southeast Michigan along with five more states as well as Canada on a Tuesday night. As per reports by the National Weather Service, this event was most likely a meteor breaking up in contact with the Earth’s atmosphere. More than 200 reports of this lighting and sound were collected by the American Meteor Society. Skywatchers say that for a moment, the light was so bright that it lit up most of Detroit like sunshine.

Dan McGhee, a local resident caught this event in the camera that was installed in his house at Ypsilanti in Michigan which is about 30 miles far from Detroit in the western direction. The event was captured by the motion based camera at 8:08 pm ET. McGhee explained that he was in the middle of a telephonic conversation when this excessively bright light lit up the sky outside his window. He initially thought this lighting and noise as a common thundersnow in the area but this time it was different.

The social media websites were stormed by the shots and videos of the event as the speculated meteor broke apart in the sky above Michigan. However, the remnants of this meteor fall weren’t found anywhere as the Ingham County Emergency Management Update stated that they haven’t acquired any kind of information or indication that suggested a meteor landing on the surface or any damage caused by the same.

Michael Narlock, astronomy chief at Cranbrook Institute of Science said that the bright object that lit up the sky is more likely a bolide meteor. This category of the meteor is a bright fireball that occasionally ends up in visible fragments. Every year Earth plays host to more than 10,000 such fireballs that are bigger than 10 grams in weight. Most of these meteors fall either in the ocean or rural regions which is mostly the uninhabited section which is away from civilization.