Eyewitnesses described seeing a fireball and hearing an extremely loud boom May 30, the day a large meteor was spotted near the Massachusetts coast.
UMass Boston student and Billerica, Massachusetts resident Parnika Phuyal said that at first, she had no idea what was happening.
“The boom was so loud that the wall felt like it was shaking. My first thought was like, ‘did the TV fall off the wall?’ or something. My next thought was if something was wrong with our chimney, so I went upstairs to my attic to check if everything was okay,” said Phuyal.
According to a post made June 1 by @NASASpaceAlerts on X, the meteor was roughly five feet in diameter with a mass of 5.6 metric tons. It entered the atmosphere at about 42,000 miles per hour and ejected meteorites over the Cape Cod Bay, a phenomenon called a meteorite fall.
“Based on the latest data, the energy released at breakup is estimated to be equivalent to about 230 tons of TNT, which accounts for the sonic boom,” NASA wrote in the post.
A “fireball” is formed from only certain meteors, according to NASA’s website. “When meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere, or that of another planet, at high speed and burn up, they’re called meteors… Sometimes meteors can even appear brighter than Venus – that’s when we call them ‘fireballs.’ Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on Earth each day,” the website says.
Another X post June 1 by NASA Space Alerts said objects over 140 meters and larger can cause widespread damage. The post reassures that any objects entering the sky are monitored by NASA’s Planetary Defense Network and that there was no danger. No injuries, deaths or significant damages have been reported.
Eyewitness accounts of meteors are reported to the American Meteor Society. Several reports, some including images and video, were uploaded of the event under the designation #3867-2026 on the American Meteor Society’s website. Sightings of the meteor were reported in nine states and in Canadian provinces Ontario and Quebec.
Largely witnessed meteor sightings have continued to occur throughout the country. A meteor exploded over Ohio in March of this year and another was also spotted in Ohio before disintegrating June 1 in Michigan. More recently, a fireball was spotted June 14 over several southeast states before finally breaking apart in Missouri, according to the American Meteor Society’s 2026 event log.
