Meteor over Massachusetts causes explosion reports, sightings from Delaware to Montreal

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Reports of an explosion from people across New England Saturday afternoon sent police agencies and others scrambling to understand what caused a double boom that shook buildings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The American Meteor Society said that the booms heard about 2:30 p.m. were actually caused by a meteor about 3 feet wide entering the atmosphere around the New Hampshire border with Massachusetts, north of Boston.

Robert Lunsford, the Fireball Program Monitor with the society, said the group received dozens of reports from Delaware to Montreal with people either hearing the double boom, feeling the ground shake or seeing the fireball — which he said looks like a shooting star in the daytime sky.

“It was definitely bigger than a normal fireball, about a yard wide,” he said.

But Lunsford said it's unlikely the meteor struck the ground.

“We would need more information about the trajectory the speed and other aspects to know for sure if it hit the ground, but if it didn't burn up, then it would have landed in the ocean,” he said. “Most of them do burn up before they hit the ground.”

People in a handful of states posted on social media about feeling the buildings they were in shaking. Several videos posted on X also captured what sounded like two quick booms, with no fire, smoke or other visual causes.

Several people also filed reports with the U.S. Geological Survey, registering the shaking they felt with the National Earthquake Information Center, agency spokesman Steve Sobie confirmed Saturday.

The agency opened an event page, based on the number of “Did you feel it?" reports it received on its website. But he said there was no event registered on the agency's seismographs. meaning the shaking was not due to an earthquake.