Fire in the Sky
That was just one of the outlandish theories people expressed about the meteor. Some apparently were hesitant to mention what they had seen because they didn't want to spread fear or be ridiculed.
The only Henderson County resident who came forward to The Gleaner the day the meteor fell was Hilary Baskett, who had gone to check his farm on the road to Spottsville. He was not fooled; he was pretty sure it was probably a meteor. But he was "particularly anxious" that others confirm what he had seen.
"To make it doubly interesting the celestial fireworks took place in broad daylight" about 8:15 a.m., The Gleaner reported Aug. 19. "He reported it to be a long, greenish, comet-like blaze which suddenly burst into nothingness as it seemed to near the ground."
"We were heading east near Fredonia (Kansas) when a meteor fell straight down," Johnson recalled. "It looked like a big shooting star. It was long, but it was quick. Wow. I've never seen one in the daylight."
He said the meteor left a brief smoke trail but didn't appear to hit the ground.
"It was fast enough that me and my wife saw it, but our son, who was also sitting in the front seat didn't. It was pretty neat!"
The meteor created a massive shock wave and thunderous boom as it streaked above southwest Missouri. The American Meteor Society received 16 reports of a fireball seen from points in southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas, southeast Kansas and northwest Arkansas, all just moments after 5 p.m. Sunday.
Widely seen as one of the most entertaining celestial events of the year, the Perseids meteor shower is caused by meteoroids from the debris trail of the Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle which orbits the sun once every 133 years.
Those in the Northern Hemisphere will be treated to the best views, provided they can escape the light pollution from towns and cities. The moon will frustrate proceedings somewhat as a full moon is due on Thursday, meaning the sky will likely be washed out for the majority of viewers, but fear not, as the Perseids have an ace up their sleeve.
Instead of shooting stars, stargazers can hunt for bright 'fireballs' which can last up to a second rather than merely fractions of a second like their shooting star brethren.
"...[T]he Perseids are rich in bright meteors and fireballs, so it will still be worth going out in the early morning to catch some of nature's fireworks," NASA says.
Security camera footage of the bright light falling to earth was captured by Tracey Reid's home CCTV in Horsham at 8.27pm, but it was seen and heard by people in Hamilton and Portland.
Astronomical Society of Victoria president Russ Cockman said it was "definitely a fireball meteor" based on its peak brightness and then the way it faded.
"Sometimes small pieces survive passage through the atmosphere and land, to be found by meteorite hunters," Mr Cockman said.
It was so bright it could be seen up to 400 kilometres away.
The stunning phenomenon just after 4am on Thursday morning was recorded on external cameras in the framework of the SMART project, operated by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN), from meteor-observing stations at the Calar Alto Observatory in the Filabres mountains, as well as in Sierra Nevada and Seville.
Texas astrophotographer Ethan Chappel captured the incredible sight while he was filming the planet, and said the event on Jupiter's southern equatorial belt "looks awfully like an impact flash." A bright spot can be seen appearing out of nowhere before it quickly fades away.
"After I checked the video and saw the flash, my mind started racing! I urgently felt the need to share it with people who would find the results useful," Chappel told ScienceAlert.
Astronomer Jonti Horner said he had "never seen anything like that before," and described the flash as "just totally breathtaking."
"A lot of the time these things will go unnoticed and unobserved," he explained. "Half of them will happen on the far side of the planet. So there's a lot of things working against seeing these events."
The University of Hawaii's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System program on Mauna Loa caught an image of the meteor that briefly lit the sky brighter than a full moon.
According to a UH news release, the ATLAS program, located at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration facility on Mauna Loa, searches for hazardous asteroids, and its all-sky weather-monitoring camera captured an image of the meteor during routine monitoring of the night sky.
"They are scientifically interesting and visually spectacular but pose no threat whatsoever," said ATLAS principal investigator Larry Denneau. "These occur over Hawaii Island maybe once every few months, and around the world there are dozens per night."
Comment: The statement that these meteors 'pose no threat whatsoever' isn't entirely true. See:
Just before 6am 6PR News director Lisa Barnes was out for her morning run near Ellenbrook when she saw the phenomenon light up the sky.
"It was so amazing to see, it lit up the whole sky, a quick flash of light and then it drew my eyes to where I was heading (...) and then it was like a ball of light and I watched it fall."
Mrs Barnes said it was much bigger and brighter than a shooting star.
What?
The Delta Aquariids meteor shower is a spectacular display of what is essentially space dust and bits of debris from a comet (or comets) in our orbital path that flew close to the Sun.
The comet sheds particles that then smash into our atmosphere - around 60 miles above Earth - and zoom across our skies at about 90,000mph (150,000kph), at times vaporizing into shooting stars and leaving a trail of blazing light behind.
Comment: It's not "extremely rare." It's not even "rare."
It USED to be, before 1994, when Comet Shoemaker-Levy broke up and impacted Jupiter.
Since then, comets/asteroids have been observed hitting Jupiter on a number of occasions...