E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSView more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.
South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show – possibly a sporadic meteor.
The Coast Guard began getting flooded with phone calls about 7:30 p.m., with reports of folks seeing flare-like objects from Jacksonville to Key West, according to Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Laberdesque.
People called in, describing the flares “as orange or red fireballs in the sky,” Laberdesque said. The display was limited to the sky: No injuries were reported, Laberdesque said.
A sporadic meteor is basically a rocky object that comes from the asteroid belt, said Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, based in Genesee, N.Y. The group logged 27 reports within about the first two hours of the event, he said.
"This is a lot of reports to come in quickly," Hankey said.
Gauging by the reports, it happened somewhere over the ocean.
"These fireballs are common," Hankey said. "It’s rare for any one person to see one more than once or twice in their lifetime. But on any given night, it might happen somewhere in the globe a few times in a day."
Hankey added: "People should not be scared of the sky falling or anything at all."
Amanda Mayer, of West Palm Beach, said she saw something in the sky and said she thought it was somebody flashing a light. She said she hit record on her camera.
"I was like, 'Wow! That's weird," Mayer said. "I just started videotaping, and that's when it happened."
It turned out to be good timing: The ball of light appeared as she recorded, she said.
"I was pretty sure it was a meteor because of everything else that's been happening," Mayer said.
The Coast Guard said it had suspected Sunday's sighting was a meteor shower, but Hankey disagreed. "Meteor showers usually are much dimmer and faster moving," Hankey said.
After a meteor exploded overhead near Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Friday, reportedly injuring more than 1,000 people, many people elsewhere in the world have wrongly thought that streaks they've seen in the sky, including planes, are meteors, Hankey said.
Traveling at 33,000 mph, a massive meteor hit the Earth's atmosphere creating a giant shockwave that blew out windows of glass, injuring nearly 1,000 people and creating panic. On the same day, an asteroid half the size of a football field came within 17,000 miles from Earth. NBC's Tom Costello reports.
"We’re getting a lot more false reports," Hankey said.
But with false reports, the group tends to receive only one report describing an incident, Hankey said. If the same event is reported over and over in five or 10 minutes, then that’s more likely to be "a legitimate event,” or sporadic meteor, Hankey said.
In South Florida Sunday night, the Coast Guard found that the light streak vanished in an instant. The Coast Guard sent out a helicopter to check out a report of a flare near the MacArthur Causeway in Miami, but found nothing there, Laberdesque said.
Related:
Leave a Comment:
That video almost looks fake....The flames coming off of it looks like someone lit a chitbag on fire and threw it off a rooftop...motave bombb?LOL...Cuban in distress? The raft is sinking, the raft is sinking, help,help...
And in the last days......Sounds like the angles are getting busy.......
Are they obtuse or acute angles?
Jackhammer, have you heard about the secret history of the coming of the Angles to England? They had a dispute about whether to land North or South of Hadrian's Wall, so the ones that decided to attack the poor and warlike Scots were the Obtuse Angles and the ones that decided to attack the rich and decadent folks South of the Wall were the Acute Angles. Totally irrelevant to the article, of course, but this is Newsvine..
The solar systems is throwing rocks at the earth. I think it is trying to tell us something
The martians are invading.
seem to be a rash of "sporadic meteors" these days...
obama say's it's Bush's fault!
Bush says "What me worry?".
Dick "the turd" Cheney says "Find it and torture it."
Condeleeza Rice says "There was a memo entitled 'Earth to be struck by meteor.'" She of course did nothing about it.
House republicans say "NO!".
John McCain says "Huh?".
Dumb Fux news says "When did the President know it and when is he going to protect our borders?".
Dude, you need to up your meds, pronto
The NRA says "Put armed guards on the space station to shoot these things down."
RWNJs say "That damned socialist, communist, dictator is trying to destroy America with big rocks."
Rush Limbaugh says "Pass the oxcycontin."
Glenn Beck says "It is a government conspiracy."
Again, I rest my case....'one flew over the cuckoo's nest'
Condeleeza Rice is still saying "we don't torture asteroids".
Bush says "I use preparation H".
McCain and Graham want to interrogate Stephen Hawking why he didn't spot these asteroids coming in.
Cheney says "It was not my fault, I was in my bunker hiding".
Sarah Palin says "I can see it from my front porch."
Donald Trump says "I'll pay a million if it can show me its birth certificate."
Mark Rubio says "Glug, glug, glug..."
Mitt Romney says "Thank god it missed the Cayman Islands!"
Michelle Bachman says "Where am I?"
Jesus says "I told you!".
Pat Robertson says "If you just send $5..."
Mike Huckabee says "At least it flew straight."
Very good, Starbuck & BigBadBob. I actually laughed loudly and scared my cat. ;)
I think the earth is tired, plain & simple. Maybe she wants to rejuvenate herself like she did billions of years ago. Humans have not been kind to the planet. I believe we have had bigger and stronger events happening such as more frequent and larger earthquakes, odd weather, and now the sky is falling
Read the book Water On The Moon by I.P. Far...It explains it all...Judging by your name, your prostate is ok...LOL...
yep, prostate would be fine, if I had one.
Since the Pope resign .... has been spending some astrophysical phenomena on earth that ever happened .. who knows if a message?
It's one thing for a meteor to strike in a recessed, backwards, corrupt place with third world standards, but when these things start hitting Russia it's pretty freaky.
Redrumisdumb, where is this video? What you described is exactly what I saw but it was hundreds of miles away and was HUGE!
Only one explaination then, God threw the flaming chitbag...Having fun since Americans missed the big show in Russia...LOL...
Same thing wiped out the dinosaurs so it is what will wipe out the human species.
Not if NWO acts first...LOL
They want to make us believe it had nothing to do with the one in Russia, How dumb do they think we are of course with all their Tech, They have to stand up and say Yes we know whats going on, the fact is, They don't know what kinda stragglers there are behind the Meteor. It's too coincedental that there not related. Then of course the Media decides to show every little hit NOW.
I think you need to take classes or watch some documentaries. The earth orbits the sun at 66,500mph. The astroid that passed us on Friday is long since gone. If anything was following it (and I serously doubt there was cause that is not how things work) we are long out of its way.
By the way it can be hard to see an astroid (let alone a little meteor), an astorid could hit us and we would of never seen it coming.
When an object such as the one in Russia and the ones off Florida and San Francisco enter the atmosphere and are observed by people over a large area, scientists can develop a reasonably accurate track. If objects are related to each other they must have the same track. As best anyone can tell, the three objects over the last few days, have all had different tracks.
But in reallity, they all could of come from Uranus like shards...LOL
This is quite common. So no need to freak out over it. This fire ball isn't the only one in recent years.
Big Deal....... Has been going on forever. To much Internet news.
Why will you guys try every tonic and elixir in the book except the one that's been proven to work and has been repeatedly prescribed to you? How could you think this is just the shadow of a passing cloud? It has been progressively degenerating right along with you, the people.
"if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14
Blah Blah Blah?
They aren't meteors, they are "obamadrones" murdering American citizens.
Naw, if that were true Dick "the turd" Cheney would have been hit in the face while hunting quail.
Enough with the Meteor stories already.
People are just freaking out with the meteor over Russia and the astroid that passed by that any little metor will flip out any idiot for a while, and the media knows this so they can make some money over it.
Chicken Little was right ;-)
Oh @!$%#, we're doomed.
Why are hemroids not called asteroids? Was asteroids already taken? Always wondered...
Hemorrhoids are just a pain in your a$$. Asteroids can be a pain in everybodys a$$.
Mr. Hankey??? The Christmas poo??? I don't think I'ma trust anything that stoner pos has to say
So I guess these will increase in frequency as the year progresses. Well played Mayans. Well played.
You do realize that this is quite common.
If the world is going to end all I ask for is 24 hours notice... I have things I want to do if i'm going to die and I need 24 hours to do them in.
Must be the Heavenly Signs we were foretold about! Well, sounds and looks like it to me anyway.
Luke 21:11
And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
Acts 2:19
And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
Must be. What is this, the 1,257th time the signs have been proclaimed by the faithful?
Oh, He covered that to. Matter of fact He said people would be saying just what you say:
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
God needs better pimps, you guys are a joke.
The Martians are landing. :)
I hope they have visas. Otherwise they'll have to self-deport.
Meteor gunna destroy the Earth???
Oh man, that's where I keep all my stuff!!