Perseid meteor shower in rural Oregon in 2016.
© Mark Graves (file photo)The meteor "fireball" seen in Michigan on May 11, 2019 was reported to be even more brilliant than this image of a Perseid meteor shower in rural Oregon in 2016.
A flash of light from a "fireball" meteor had people buzzing across parts of Michigan early this morning.

"We are hearing about a brilliant meteor that was seen before 3 a.m.," the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids posted on its Facebook page early Saturday. Sky-watchers were quick to respond.

Reports of sightings came in from Coopersville, Manistee and Muskegon. Most of the reports seemed to indicate the fireball was spotted about 12:45 a.m.

One person in Coopersville responded to the NWS, describing her fireball sighting: "Saw it while I was putting plastic over my garden boxes, (because of the frost) the light began flickering so I turned around to look at the light pole behind me and there was the bright green meteor streaking across the sky, crumbling into pieces as is fell towards the treeline. It was close enough to see the reds and oranges of the fireballs breaking apart and the flashing neon green light eminating around the fiery rock bits. The tail was a bright white streak being left behind it."


A fireball is a term used to describe a really bright meteor, generally something that looks brighter than how the planet Venus looks in the morning sky, according to the American Meteor Society. The Coopersville woman's description sounds like a "bolide," which the AMS describes as "a special type of fireball which explodes in a bright terminal flash at its end, often with visible fragmentation."

A person in Whitehall described their meteor sighting to NWS this way: "Sure did! 12:45am, woke up to light flashing in the bedroom, thought it was lightning, then thought someone was shooting off fireworks. Then, when I didn't hear any sound, I realized it was a fireball/meteor."

Did you see it? If so, let us know in the comments.

The last big meteor flash that had people across the state talking was on Jan. 16, 2018. In that case, images caught on security cameras were quickly shared. That meteor came with a "boom" that knocked pictures off of walls in some people's homes and registered as a 2.0-magnitude earthquake with the U.S. Geological Survey.