Thriller fireball noticed plummeting to Earth over the US

Sightings of a fireball streaking down from the sky have been reported by eyewitnesses in a number of south-eastern US states on the afternoon of 26 June.

The American Meteor Society’s website has logged no less than 142 experiences concerning the fireball occasion from observers in a number of states reminiscent of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The Nationwide Climate Service workplace in Charleston, South Carolina, said that “satellite-based lightning detection” confirmed a streak within the sky over the border between North Carolina and Virginia between 11.51 and 11.56am Japanese Daylight Time.

A dashcam video from a driver in upstate South Carolina shows the fiery object plummeting from the sky earlier than disappearing behind a forested space adjoining to the freeway. One other automotive driving south-west of Columbia, South Carolina, additionally captured footage of the falling object.

“This was clearly a pure rock coming down and never synthetic area particles,” says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer who tracks area launches.

VIDEO | This was simply despatched to me taken from a splash digital camera on I-85 SB in Upstate South Carolina pic.twitter.com/49PvNsorAK

— Cody Alcorn (@CodyAlcorn) June 26, 2025

It could have been what’s often known as a bolide fireball occasion, the place a brilliant meteor explodes and breaks aside because it falls by Earth’s ambiance, stated Mike Hankey on the American Meteor Society in an interview with WXIA-TV in Georgia.

Meteorologist Chris Jackson posted on social media that native hearth departments have been responding to experiences of “fireballs falling out of the sky” however added that the emergency responders had not discovered something on the bottom as of early afternoon.

There are at present no main meteor showers active and visual from Earth. The subsequent main meteor bathe occasion includes the Southern delta Aquariids beginning subsequent month.