A mysterious explosion heard across New York accompanied by a bright fireball in the sky was probably caused by an object falling from space, according to experts.
Multiple people reported a huge explosion heard in New York as well as the sky filled with a bright, fast streak and a sparkling flash of rainbow colours.
One witness told the American Meteor Society she saw: "So many shades, fire colour in the centre with blues, purple, pink around the outside and the streak was super bright white light," and said "It was beautiful!"
Others reporters a boom: "loud enough to make the ground shake slightly".
"I felt it in my chest and had to stand still for a moment in panic," one witness said, reports The Mirror .
"I got ready to load my children up with our emergency bags because I thought the power plant 12 miles away from me blew up."
Mike Hankey, operations manager of the American Meteor Society, told CNN that they "got a lot of emails from people about the boom," and that "it seemed significant".
"What they were seeing was the light produced by the object colliding with the atmosphere," Hankey explained.
He added that there was typically a delay between the sound and the visual reports, because sound travels slower than light.
Most accounts from the New York event state that the light streak and noise lasted from between 1.5 to 3.5 seconds.
So far there have been no reports of any damage caused by the fireball.
