Enormous meteor fireball seen across US Midwest, 15 April 2016

KPLR St. Louis
Sun, 17 Apr 2016 10:54 UTC

A meteor streaked across the St. Louis area on Friday at about 10:16pm. We received many reports from viewers about the shooting star. Sightings of the streak of greenish-blue light were reported in four states, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee.

Two of our web cameras caught a great view of the meteor, Eckert's in Belleville, IL, and Mattress Direct in South St. Louis County . In the Belleville view, you'll see the green object streak across the screen followed by a spider walking across the camera lens.

We are in the midst of the Lyrid meteor shower, which is active each year in mid to late April. In 2016, the peak of this shower is expected on the morning of April 22, so there could be more shooting stars.

Did you see what looks to be a meteor behind @WilliamWAVE3 tonight?!? pic.twitter.com/sTPbQkJ8c8

— Brian Goode (@BGoodeWAVE3) April 16, 2016

I just saw a massive meteor in Champaign, IL. It was probably a sixth the size of the moon, bright green, sweeping across the sky #meteor

— Isaac Chambers (@isaacchambers) April 16, 2016

Raise your hand if you saw that mindblowing mutant meteor streaking across the sky tonight! The universe just passed a massive kidney stone!

— STL-Style (@STLstyle) April 16, 2016

It was so amazing! It looked so low in the sky... Like it could take out the arch

— laura slay (@lslay) April 16, 2016

Comment: Sott.net reader JB wrote in to report that he saw it too:

At 22:16 on April 15, 2016, travelling south/east on I90/39 around Edgerton, Wisconsin, my wife and I were 300 yards from a fast-travelling object falling from the sky trailing green, blue and orange. It was going east to west and it fell to the ground about a football field from the interstate and glowed blue once it hit the ground.

It's unlikely that the main body hit the ground, although smaller meteorites may have done so.