Hundreds of People Captured a Mysterious Fireball Zipping Through the Sky

Florida got quite the show.

On Monday, residents of Florida and its surrounding islands lived through what could be mistaken for the opening scene of a superhero movie. For a brief moment, so quick you could blink and nearly miss it, a fireball zipped through the night sky, flaring into a bright flash before disappearing on the horizon. While the mysterious asteroid didn't actually make contact with Earth, it was a close enough encounter that witnesses could've easily been fooled.

The strange phenomenon, logged by the American Meteor Society as Event 2281-2021, was captured by hundreds of spectators on dashcams, cell phones, and security cameras, according to a report by The Guardian. Some took to social media to share the experience, others sent clips to local media, and some uploaded their footage straight to the AMS database. A reporter even caught the glowing object on camera during a Facebook Live.

There are conflicting reports from experts about what the object might have been. An initial assumption was that it was Asteroid 2021 GW4, which astronomers had anticipated passing near Earth's satellites on Monday.

Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who was keeping up with Asteroid GW4, said on Twitter that the Florida spectacle was unrelated to the asteroid and is "a normal fireball."

Even if it was just another fireball, it sure got people's attention, and when you watch the videos, you can understand why.

click to play video
click to play video

Want more Thrillist? Follow us on InstagramTwitterPinterestYouTubeTikTok, and Snapchat.

Kyler Alvord is a news writer at Thrillist. Find him on Twitter and Instagram. Or don't. It's really up to you.