Eerie glow seen racing behind clouds in the Northeast, video shows. What was it?

A mysterious throbbing light seen racing behind clouds in the northeastern U.S. and Canada has been identified as a meteor, according to the American Meteor Society.

One witness in Havre de Grace, Maryland, recorded video of the eerie glow, showing the fireball resembled a silent explosion that lit the early morning as most people slept.

Nine witnesses from Maryland to Ontario, Canada, have filed reports of seeing the fireball around 3:40 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 1, the society says.

Some described it as green, others saw white or blue and one man described it as “light yellow with a red tail.”

“Spectacular. Took the dog out to pee and saw this as I looked towards Lake Ontario from my back deck,” a witness in Ontario reported. “It looked huge.”

The glow lasted up to 10 seconds for a man in Pennsylvania, who also described a “ground level flash in the distance” that he likened to lightning.

Two witnesses said it split into fragments, some of which glowed red and orange.

At least one witness heard “a slight popping sound like breaking through the atmosphere.”

Scientists say the colors in a fireball are sparked by the type of minerals in the plummeting rock.

“For example, sodium produces a bright yellow color, nickel shows as green, and magnesium as blue-white,” the society says.

“The velocity of the meteor also plays an important role, since a higher level of kinetic energy will intensify certain colors compared to others.”

Meteoroids enter the atmosphere at speeds ranging from 25,000 mph to 160,000 mph, the society says. They quickly begin to slow, however, when encountering denser portions of the atmosphere, experts say.

This story was originally published February 3, 2025 at 1:11 PM with the headline "Eerie glow seen racing behind clouds in the Northeast, video shows. What was it?."