Jersey sky shocker: Blazing daytime fireball leaves surprised witnesses across the state

✅Rare daytime meteor stunned hundreds across New Jersey

✅Witnesses saw bright green, blue, and red streaks and heard thunder-like sounds

✅Fragments may have survived — but no impact confirmed

A rare daytime meteor streaked across the sky over New Jersey on Tuesday afternoon.

The sighting around 2:30 p.m. generated 147 reports to the American Meteor Society as of 5 p.m., mostly from New Jersey but also from as far north as Hartford, Connecticut, the Hudson Valley in New York, and eastern Pennsylvania. Some also reported hearing what sounded like thunder.

A sampling of the reports to the AMS:

• "I have seen meteors at night before. A quick flash in a small part of sky. This was afternoon, full day light. I actually was turning my head as I watched it travel across the sky," read a report from Brick.
• "The center looked white with a mix of red and green on the immediate halo of the center. That was surrounded and had a long tail of green, blue, and white," read a report from Lower Alloways Creek.
• "Started as one ball fragmented into 2-3 and then totally broke apart into smaller fragments," read a report from Totowa. It was described as light blue and light green in color.
• "It moved very slowly compared to a regular white meteor. It seemed low. It looked almost like pretty rainbow bubbles. I had time to point it out to two people who also saw it," read a report from Keyport.
• "It was teardrop shape but on its side with a thin tail. One in front was largest with 3 or 4 smaller ones but in very close proximity to each other," read an oberservation from Absecon.

It is rare to see a fireball during the day, but there has been an increase in daytime sightings, according to Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society.

"We've had a bunch of them here lately. We've had some over Ohio and Texas. It's not unusual to have a lot of evening fireballs this time of year, but to see them during the day, that is unusual," Lunsford told New Jersey 101.5. "Something unusual is going on. We can't quite pinpoint it, but I think folks should enjoy it while it's happening."

Lunsford said that many of the reports say the fireball had a green color. Most daytime fireballs are white or colorless.

"This indicates that this particular fireball probably had a high concentration of the element nickel, which will produce a green flame when heated," Lunsford said.

The meteor likely burned in the atmosphere, as many observations say the fireball was already fragmenting. But there is a possibility it did not.

"We can't rule it out 100%. What we look for is the report of sonic booms, which means that fragments could have survived down to the lower atmosphere where the the air molecules are thick enough to carry sound," Lunsford said.

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