‘Scary’ fireball traveling at 32,000 mph vanishes over North Carolina lake, NASA says

A fireball seen over the Eastern Seaboard was soaring at 32,000 mph when it disintegrated above a 4,600-acre lake in North Carolina, according to NASA.

It happened around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, and nearly 180 people filed witness reports, including some who called it “scary,” the American Meteor Society says.

“Data places first visibility for the fireball at an altitude of 48 miles above the town of Allen Grove in northern North Carolina,” NASA Meteor Watch reported in a June 26 Facebook post.

“Moving ... at 32,000 miles per hour and descending at a steep angle ... the object only managed to travel 40 miles through the atmosphere before disintegrating 28 miles above Roanoke Rapids Lake, just south of the North Carolina/Virginia border.”

Fireballs are very bright meteors and several thousand occur daily in Earth’s atmosphere, the American Meteor Society says.

“The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight,” the society says. “Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.”

Multiple witnesses reported the June 25 fireball was tinted with various shades of green and had an “orange fiery tail.” Green fireballs are often made of the metal nickel, the society says.

A “crackling sound” was heard in some parts of North Carolina and one witness in the Raleigh area saw “a collection of small bright pieces following the same path.”

“It was as if it would have hit a low flying plane. ... So close and bright,” Crystal P. of Ayden wrote in a witness report.

“Moved like a shooting star but it was very close and looked like a rock on fire. Looked like it landed in the neighbor’s backyard. Walked around the block because I was worried about potential fire,” Libby P. of Mechanicsville, Virginia, said.

“It was close and low enough to be startling,” Nick D. of White Post, Virginia, posted.

Witness reports were also filed by people in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, the society said.

This story was originally published June 27, 2024 at 4:42 AM with the headline "‘Scary’ fireball traveling at 32,000 mph vanishes over North Carolina lake, NASA says."