New Meteor Fireball Sightings in Florida

theintelhub.com
February 18, 2013
Reports of a meteor fireball sighting in parts of Florida have poured in with concerned locals taking to Twitter to report their sighting and to Youtube to publish captured video of the fireball.
According to CBS News:

“A strange sight in the skies over Broward County caused some concerned people to call the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Coast Guard Sunday night when streaking lights were seen over the ocean around Hallandale Beach and points northward.
A CBS 4 employee was the first to call and report the possible meteor or fireball streaking across the sky. BSO and the Coast Guard then reported they too were receiving calls.
Some people thought it was a flare from a distressed boater but the Coast Guard said that wasn’t the case. Turns out, it was a sporadic fireball meteor, according to Mike Hankey with the American Meteor Society.
Hankey told CBS4 News that the AMS received 30 reports on their site from Florida. He said sporadic fireball meteors happen every day, a couple of times a day across the globe.
They come from an asteroid belt. He believes the one seen over South Florida landed in the ocean and was likely between the size of a golf ball to a soccer ball.”

From USNEWS.com:

Update:  Another meteor? ‘Fireballs’ light up Florida sky

South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show – possibly a sporadic meteor.

The Coast Guard began getting flooded with phone calls about 7:30 p.m., with reports of folks seeing flare-like objects from Jacksonville to Key West, according to Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Laberdesque.

People called in, describing the flares “as orange or red fireballs in the sky,” Laberdesque said. The display was limited to the sky: No injuries were reported, Laberdesque said.

From the LA Times:

The sky is falling! Florida residents reported seeing a flickering light falling off the state’s eastern coast Sunday night, raising curiosity over whether Earth has played host to yet another meteor.
Crowdsourced reports on the American Meteor Society’s website generally stated the falling light happened sometime after 6:30 p.m. local time, with sightings from Cocoa, Fla., all the way down to Miami.
NBC-6 in Miami showed witness video of a falling, flickering light, burning brighter and moving slower than most small shooting stars.
Miami residents took to Twitter to say they saw a fireball. (Meteors are what’s in the sky; meteorites are what you find on the ground.)
“My man was just on the golf course in #Miami & swears he saw a #meteor. Did that happen or is he just messing with me?!” one user tweeted.
“Just witnessed a meteor go down near South Beach. True story!” another added.
“Yeah I wasn’t on acid or anything, I def. saw a meteor fireball thingy in the sky today,” said another user.

Numerous videos of the sightings have hit the internet in the last 24 hours.
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