American Meteor Society
Over 200 reports were logged within the first hour following a bright fireball event near Buffalo New York, Wednesday night at approximately 8:30 Eastern Time. Witnesses from Maryland, Virginia Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Ontario reported a bright glowing ball of fire moving quickly across the sky. Many witnesses described an increasing intensity before it terminated, a common trait of bolide meteors. Below is a heat map of the event showing where the witnesses saw the fireball from.
Fireball Event 2014-3384
Calculating the trajectory from the witness reports, it appears the fireball started in the northern part of New York state and traveled west-north-west, going dark somewhere near Buffalo New York.
Fireball Event 2014-3384
The fireball was caught on 3 cameras in the NASA Fireball Network operated by Bill Cooke at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Cooke estimated the meteoroid was 100 kilograms and traveling 13 kilometers per second.
Below is a still frame image from one of the cameras.
2014-3384 Fireball Image – Credit: Bill Cooke / NASA
If you witnessed this meteor event, please fill out an official fireball report and tell us what you saw.
I witnessed the meteroid while I was driving in my car. I was traveling Northbound and saw it in the north eastern sky sometime around 8:30 pm. It got my attention as being much more than just a shooting star. It was bright and travelled downward toward the west before burning out. I was heading toward Green Lane PA on Rt. 63 from Harleysville, PA.
I saw the fireball over Austintown ohio around 8:30pm. It was beautiful!
I was in Bowling Green, Ohio driving east on Poe Road shortly after turning on to Poe from Mitchell Road. Before reaching the city limit a bright light caught my attention from behind the left front window frame so I moved my head to see in time to see a fireball moving from my perspective nearly straight down in a slightly northward slant as it broke apart into several smaller pieces and the disappeared. Peak intensity for me was about the instant it broke apart but there may have been a brighter point that I missed due to the car frame being in the way initially. I believe I can calculate a fairly accurate angle of view based on the position of my head and the initial siting behind roughly the midpoint of my Honda Civic left front window frame if you would be interested in extra data. For simplicity at the moment since I don’t have the proper tools on hand where I am currently at, I will estimate the position as Northeast-east somewhere between 20 and 40 degrees above the horizon. Let me know if you would like me to calculate the trajectory more accurately. My wife was also in the car and can verify what I saw.
My daughter saw this last night right around 8:30pm. She got off work at 8:15 and when she came in the house, she said I just saw the biggest brightest shooting star I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think too much of it, just made sure she made a wish, then I saw this news report today. This is what she described!!! She was just passed the Great Lakes Mall on Rte 84 heading east when she saw it.
I saw this yellow orange glowing object falling from the sky at approximately 8:30 PM, EST, as I was driving home from work in Southeast Michigan.
I was driving home (north on GA Ave in Maryland about 20 miles west of Baltimore) about 8:30 Wednesday evening and happened to be looking east and saw this incredible orange fireball falling from the sky. It had a very traditional comet-like shape falling nearly vertical towards the earth.
I have seen some amazing fireballs in my life, never did I think to report them until this event…now I am hooked. How cool is this website. AWESOME!! Glad there are other people out there who look up once in awhile. Cheers
Saw a red tailed shooting star or whatever at about 10:19 very close
AMAZING
Buckeye AZ 85326
Tonight on february 10 2020 at 615 pm i noticed a fireball from the sky falling like a meteor red with a white long tail. Buffalo, NY