Sierra Nevada Meteor: Loud Explosion And Fireball Likely Caused By Meteor, Astronomers Say

RENO, Nev. -- Astronomers say a loud explosion heard across a large swath of Nevada and California on Sunday morning was likely caused by a meteor.

The sound of the explosion around 8 a.m. prompted a flood of calls to law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Sierra Nevada in the two states.

The explosion rattled windows and shook houses from Reno to Winnemucca in Nevada, and from the Sacramento to Bakersfield areas in California.

Some people in the two states reported seeing a fireball streak across the sky at the same time.

Dan Ruby of the Fleischmann Planetarium at the University of Nevada, Reno, says the reports indicate the meteor broke up above Earth somewhere over the Sierra southwest of Reno.

There were no reports of earthquakes at the time.

Also on HuffPost:

GALLERY: PAST METEOR SHOWERS

Comments

[iridium species]

01:12 PM on 04/25/2012

One has to be suspicious when NASA states the boom sound was "likely" caused by meteor. A) where did it enter, land, strike? Radar much? and B) there were widespread visual confirmations of seeing a meteor-like object flying in the sky, on fire. So, unless NASA has reason to believe it was a military craft it is in fact certain to be a meteor.

[Lara MerriamSmith]

04:58 PM on 04/24/2012

Thank you, atmosphere, for protecting us... again!

[whyus]

11:31 AM on 04/24/2012

Seems like meteors are getting closer.

[Silken17]

07:31 PM on 04/25/2012

Duh! Everyone knows that the arachnoids from Klendathu have been launching asteroids at the earth for years!

[Royce09]

07:54 AM on 04/24/2012

Do we now have a new Grand Canyon somehwere in California or Nevada?

[tccat4]

07:19 AM on 04/24/2012

How about the hypersonic glider hitting earth atmosphere, causing the sonic boom. And the pieces seen were the outer metal falling off. Look what happened to Columbia. It dropped pieces everywhere. Imagine if it had been at night.
www.dailyyonder.com/searching-traces-columbia/2009/01/31/1884

[SimonBao]

12:30 PM on 04/24/2012

To the best of my knowledge, no sonic boom is going to be heard across two states. They're loud, but a glider or aircraft is incapable of producing anything THAT loud.

[tccat4]

08:05 AM on 04/25/2012

TY Simon.. appreciate the comment

[tccat4]

07:04 AM on 04/24/2012

Newt's space ship to Colony Mars ran out of gas upon take off, critics say Newt had ordered the rocket from N Korea. Upon crashing Newt proclaimed, thats ok it was paid for by donations from taxpayers. And he was just trying to get out of town before the news got out.

[gameused4u]

05:37 AM on 04/24/2012

Dang! And here I thought it was a Mexican Drug Cartel who had just discovered the secreat of splitting the pinto bean atom in a drug lab! Guess I won't have to run out and buy a gas mask after all!

[BNevrgivup]

04:53 AM on 04/24/2012

Sounds fishy to me, they were not able to forcast or track this type of incoming activity, it was part of a meteor shower? Not buying it...It was an alien space craft used by the R's in landing Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Perrry and Sara P.

[lilsebastlan]

12:28 AM on 04/24/2012

If you read the news on Google. DARPA had a glider they had enter the atmosphere at mach 20 hyper sonic speed. It was the 2nd time they have done this. It broke up over the pacific ocean. Hence the sonic booms.

[metalsmithgirl71]

04:00 AM on 04/24/2012

that happened last year.

[lilsebastlan]

01:55 PM on 05/01/2012

Correct they did it last year,and 1 week ago HENCE 2ND GLIDER.

[The Promised Land]

12:23 AM on 04/24/2012

It was Rush Limbaugh after eating a trough of baked beans and downing a case of cheap Mexican beer. It all went off at once.

[Big Horn Man]

12:22 AM on 04/24/2012

Could be the Blob from outer space.

[Debra L Ackerman]

11:24 PM on 04/23/2012

OMG!! JUST WHAT THE EXTREMISTS NEED TO CONJURE UP SPACE ALIENS,, THERE WAS A HUGE METEOR SHOWER ON 21ST MOST LIKELY FROM IT. NO! IT WASN'T JESUS OR ANY SPACESHIP. MY GOD IF THERE WERE ALIENS THY WOULD HAVE COME HERE AND WIPED OUT THIS SORRY EXCUSE FOR LIFE ALREADY AND TAKEN OVER THE EARTH AND DONE RIGHT BY IT.

[cbrown4115]

12:34 AM on 04/24/2012

"Sorry excuse for life?" That's pretty harsh... Since we have no knowledge of life anywhere else... and have nothing to compare our experience to... why automatically assume that we suck? I'm sure that in the universal scheme we are at least average... :)

[tccat4]

07:10 AM on 04/24/2012

cb.. ever think we were dropped off by aliens, and every so often they come back to see that their expectations aren't even close to happening..lol
Man has to get over that he is more brilliant than anything in the universe... were all just starting our learning 10 million years ago.

[cul8rsb]

11:20 PM on 04/23/2012

Maybe it was a weather balloon.

[lilsebastlan]

12:25 AM on 04/24/2012

hahahaha that is awesome!

[OldDaveNJ]

10:48 PM on 04/23/2012

I don't see any sign of a meteor in the first picture (shown above) of "past meteor showers" ...

[mspat44417]

10:43 PM on 04/23/2012

How cool....