A large part of southeast Michigan saw a bright light and heard rolling thunder-type sounds around 8:15 p.m. EST Tuesday, phenomena caused by a meteoroid exploding over the state. The event was caught on camera by a large number of people, many of whom were not sure what it was they had seen.

Since the whole incident — from the first appearance of the meteor to the meteoroid exploding in a fireball — lasted barely a few seconds, almost all the videos and photographs of it that were shared online by people were taken by security cameras.

There were also many other people in the region, which included the Detroit metro area, who did not see the meteor but only saw the flash from the fireball explosion. There were also others who felt its impact, as their houses shook from the force of what would likely have been the shockwave from the explosion.

Did the meteoroid burn up completely or did fragments of it fall to Earth? Some local news media said there were unconfirmed reports of the meteoroid landing in Lake Michigan. Given that the explosion didn’t cause any damage, it is doubtful if the meteoroid was big enough to largely survive the reentry and passage through the atmosphere. If there were any pieces of it that did reach the surface, they were likely very small.

At least someone in the area seemed to be claiming to have a piece falling in her backyard.

And someone just had to invoke “The X-Files.”

The National Weather Service, which first posted a tweet and then deleted it, calling the event a likely meteor, posted another tweet later confirming it was not a weather-related incident, and was possibly a meteor.

The Ingham County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management said on its Facebook page it had received multiple 911 calls about the incident, and telling people it was “a natural meteor fireball,” asked them not to call the emergency number.

A meteor is the flash of light seen in the sky, produced as a trail of a rock falling through Earth’s atmosphere. The light is produced as the object burns due to the friction with the atmosphere. The object itself, a piece of interplanetary debris (not to be confused with human-made space junk), is called a meteoroid. And if any parts of it survive the fall (and the explosion, if there is one) and make it to Earth’s surface are called meteorites.

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