See fireball streak across Carolinas’ sky, ‘like a beautiful space firework.’
Six Carolinians, including a woman in Charlotte, reported a fireball in the nighttime sky Thursday, according to the American Meteorological Society.
Pat Branch of Gray Court, South Carolina, shot a five-second video of the mysterious orb streaking upward left to right and posted the video on the society website. A man in Gray Court identified only as Dwayne F. posted a photo of the streaking fireball.
A woman in Morganton described the extraterrestrial something as “a beautiful, fairly large bright green ball that flew across the sky and appeared to be falling downward the farther it went, until it went out of sight.”
“It was a glowing train,” light green, the Charlotte woman said.
“Blue,” said a woman in Simpsonville, South Carolina.
“It was large in size as it passed overhead, before a white sparkling trail appeared behind it,” the Simpsonville stargazer said.
“It was like a beautiful space firework,” wrote a man in Piedmont, South Carolina.
Such sightings are fairly frequent, often within weeks or months of each other.
On Dec. 30, people in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland reported a mysterious fireball in the night sky, according to the American Meteor Society. A resident of Arlington, Virginia, posted video of the mystery orb on the society’s website.
Help report fireballs
The society encourages people to report anything they see that’s “bright and fast” in the sky and may look like a shooting star. “Report it: it may be a fireball,” society officials say.
Filing a report is important because it alerts the society “to potentially scientifically significant events that occur, and contributes to the general database of knowledge about meteors.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 5:15 PM with the headline "See fireball streak across Carolinas’ sky, ‘like a beautiful space firework.’."