Around 4:00am local time yesterday morning, people near Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona were treated to a loud boom and flash of blinding light as some sort of space junk intersected with Earth’s atmosphere. The AP reported that the possible meteor or meteorites may have landed by the nearby town of Cibecue.
The event is not believed to be part of a meteor shower, rather a chance collision between Earth’s orbit and some errant space debris. Surveillance footage and video from people who happened to be filming the normally pitch-black roads of pre-dawn Arizona surfaced on social media, illustrating the intensity of the flash.
Meteor over AZ last night. I saw this movie once, it didn’t end well for Bruce Willis. #logicircle #meteor pic.twitter.com/5gkb9CWZuz
— Linsey J (@LinseyJameson) June 2, 2016
Those who weren’t quick enough to catch the boom itself snapped photos of the trails of ionized air left behind in the sky.
In the northeastern sky, here’s the trail from what seemed to be a meteor. pic.twitter.com/tQIaOpBGLI
— Arizona DOT (@ArizonaDOT) June 2, 2016
The event was best summarised in the video below with a simple phrase: “Holy fuckin’ shit.”
[Reddit, AP, Tuscon News Now]