meteor boston residents reported a loud double boom in the early afternoon as phones and social media filled with videos of a bright daytime fireball, according to eyewitness accounts and posts compiled by the American Meteor Society.
The American Meteor Society said the object was about three feet wide and entered the atmosphere near the New Hampshire border with Massachusetts, Robert Lunsford, the society’s Fireball Program Monitor, told reporters, adding most such objects burn up before reaching the ground.
People from Delaware to Montreal filed reports describing windows rattling, walls trembling and pets reacting, the society said, while several videos captured two quick booms with no visible smoke or fire at the surface.
The U.S. Geological Survey logged numerous “Did you feel it?” reports and opened an event page based on those submissions, agency spokesman Steve Sobie confirmed, but the agency found no signal on seismographs to indicate an earthquake.
Agency Findings And Public Reaction
NASA confirmed the object as a fast moving fireball that fragmented in the atmosphere, estimating the breakup about 40 miles above extreme northeast Massachusetts and southeast New Hampshire and saying the object released energy equivalent to about 300 tons of TNT.
The agency said the meteor was not a satellite re entry or space debris, was not linked to an active meteor shower and likely did not produce recoverable fragments on land, with any surviving pieces most likely falling into the Atlantic.
Satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded a signal consistent with a meteor at the same time, a detail that helped scientists confirm timing and path.
Astronomy educator Shauna Edson said the loud sound probably came from compressed air created by the meteor’s high speed combined with fragmentation as it broke apart, an explanation offered to contextualize the sonic boom felt over a wide area.
Despite official explanations, social media quickly circulated speculation and alien cover up claims after a brief delay in widespread agency statements, but scientists and NASA publicly identified the event as a natural atmospheric breakup.
