As if we haven’t had enough cosmic events going on, from a rumbling earthquake and dozens of aftershocks to a rare solar eclipse, a bright fireball tore across the skies over New Jersey and surrounding states early today.
People in at least 10 New Jersey towns reported seeing a bright fireball streaking through the sky during the pre-dawn hours Wednesday morning, according to the American Meteor Society and reports on social media. The fireball was also reported in parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York state.
“I was just washing my hands after showering at 3:40 something in the morning before heading to bed in the kitchen and as I was washing my hand, I saw a bright green almost neon in color falling from the sky,” a resident of Linden in Union County said in a fireball report on the AMS website.
“There wasn’t any long trails or anything, but it did fall and disappear,” the resident reported. “I was watching it through a window so that might’ve affected my vision, but I was just left there stunned.”
Some witnesses described a bright green fireball, while others said they saw a blue-colored flash in the sky.
In a post on a Wall Township Facebook page, a resident posted a video clip from a home security camera, showing what appears to be a bright bluish-green meteor dropping behind a row of trees.
About 60 different reports of sightings, which are considered unofficial until they get reviewed by the AMS, were logged between 3:40 and 3:55 a.m. from Allentown and Lititz in eastern Pennsylvania to Millsboro in southern Delaware.
Among the New Jersey sightings were reports from Atlantic City, Barnegat Township, Beach Haven, Hackettstown, Hamburg, Linden, Manasquan, Milford, Perth Amboy and Wallington. The reports from New York included one from Binghamton, one from Peekskill and one from an unspecified town.
“This was one of the most astonishing things I have seen in my lifetime and I have seen many fireballs, meteors, shooting stars,” a witness from Pottstown, Pennsylvania reported. “This was beyond.”
Another witness, a man from the borough of Hamburg in Sussex County, also said he was amazed by the sight.
“I have never seen anything like this before,” he reported, saying he saw “a flash, then a bright blue object heading straight down.”
Some witnesses said they saw the fireball — a meteor that is bigger and brighter than a typical meteor — streaking down from the sky for 1.5 seconds, and some for as long as 7.5 seconds.
“It was absolutely beautiful and I’m so grateful to have looked out at that exact moment,” said a person who saw the fireball from Milford in Hunterdon County.
The fireball was spotted about a week before the annual Lyrid meteor shower is expected to begin. The Lyrid shower will get underway with some activity on April 15 and continue through April 29, but it won’t be peaking (with the highest number of meteors visible) until the late-night hours of April 22 and early morning hours of April 23, according to astronomy experts at Space.com.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.
Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com or on X at @LensReality.
