From Georgia to South Carolina and Tennessee, a mysterious flaming object could be seen streaking the sky on Thursday afternoon, leaving a trail of exhaust in its wake, and then dramatically plunking toward the ground.
Scientists, meteorologists and even law enforcement officials in those states were working to figure out what had caught the attention of drivers and observers in such a wide swath of the South. The sightings prompted hundreds of calls to the authorities.
It was not clear if it was a meteorite, space debris or something else.
There were about 130 reports of fireball sightings in 20 states, according to the American Meteor Society, beginning just after noon. It was not clear how many of those were related to the event seen on videos circulating on Thursday.
In Georgia and South Carolina, observers even called 911 to report the flying object, according to local news outlets.
“It looks to be a ‘daytime fireball’ that caused a sonic boom,” said Mike Hankey, the operations manager at the American Meteor Society. “This is usually indicative of a meteorite dropping a fireball, but not always.”
A fireball is a very bright meteor — generally brighter than the planet Venus — in the morning or evening sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
The National Weather Service office in Charleston said on its social media page that while it was “not certain” what the object was, its satellite-based lightning detection system showed “a streak within cloud free sky” over the border between North Carolina and Virginia, over Gasburg, Va.
The office said the streak was detected between 11:51 a.m. and 11:56 a.m. local time.
The object does not appear to have been a meteorite, or a solid piece of space debris, said Doug Outlaw, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service office in Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.
“Whatever traveled through the sky, it remains a mystery,” Mr. Outlaw said.
The Federal Aviation Administration in a statement said “we have no reports of unusual aircraft activity in the area.”
An estimated 40 to 100 tons of space material strike Earth every day, and most of it is very small particles, according to the European Space Agency.
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on transportation. He is based in Washington.
Adeel Hassan, a New York-based reporter for The Times, covers breaking news and other topics.
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