A possible meteor bolted across the night sky Tuesday night illuminating large swaths of areas in states from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, the National Weather Service said.
There was a loud bang that was reported during the event that caused a magnitude 2.0 earthquake in the Detroit metropolitan area, the NWS reported, citing USGS.
Some residents reported their homes shaking.
The weather service hasn’t been able to confirm that it was a meteor despite reports and videos received by the agency late Tuesday, Meteorologist Jordan Dale said.
“It was not thunder or lightning or weather-related,” he said.
A majority of the reports came from southeast Michigan, WXYZ reported, but there were also reports from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Canada.
The American Meteor Society received more than 350 fireball reports of the incident.
Dale said the weather service is trying to determine what caused the light and noise, calling it “a rare occurrence.”
Meteoroids may be common, but the associated fireballs, or bolides, “are extremely rare,” Bob Trembley, a former outreach officer for the Warren Astronomical Society and volunteer NASA/JPL solar system ambassador, told the Detroit News.
“Anybody that saw it is lucky,” said Trembley, who has studied the phenomenon for many years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.