LIGHT SHOW: Area residents see, feel sonic boom caused by fireball

BESSEMER CITY, N.C. — A fireball was seen and heard by people across seven states, including in the Charlotte area.

Jeannie Connor never actually saw what passed over her home Thursday, but she felt it.

“It was just a big boom,” Connor said. “And you could feel it shake, the ground and the house too.”

(WEB EXTRA: A clip of the fireball from the NASA satellite)

Experts said what came through the Bessemer City neighborhood was from a sonic boom caused by a fireball.

Connor said she has never heard anything like that before.

“Never. Never. We don't know really what it is,” she said.

Mike Hankey, from the American Meteor Society, said it’s not quite a falling star, but rathers a meteor that’s much bigger and brighter than a fallen star.

“Our atmosphere creates all this friction. It starts to slow down,” Hankey said. “All this energy is producing this heat, this light. You see this burning ball of fire in the sky.”

According to the AMS, more than 60 people reported sightings overnight.

Experts said fireballs happen all the time, but seeing one is more uncommon.

“These events are somewhat common for our planet, but as an individual person, you could go your whole life and never see it,” Hankey said.

Raymond Burr, who lives just minutes away from one of the areas in which the fireball was visible, said he slept through it.”

“Yeah, I did,” Burr said, laughing.

Fireball travels at mph in the tens of thousands.

Thanks to a NASA satellite, images provide a small glimpse of an otherwise massive light display.

Dozens of viewers called Channel 9 in April when another fireball flew overhead.

People reported seeing that one from Jacksonville, Florida to Roanoke, Virginia.

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