UPDATE: 02/20/2023, 4:16 P.M.
NASA has confirmed that a 1,000-pound meteor crashed into South Texas last week on Wednesday night. The American Meteor Society shared a photograph of the massive meteor on Facebook on February 18, causing the picture to go viral.
"Although meteorites tend to hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds, they slow as they travel through the atmosphere, breaking into small fragments before hitting the ground. Meteorites cool rapidly and generally are not a risk to the public," NASA said in a statement.
According to the National Weather Service in Brownsville/Rio Grande Valley, multiple people reported seeing a possible meteor in the sky west of McAllen on the evening of February 15. The weather agency also reported that the flash from the meteor was captured by a Geostationary Lightning Mapper right before 5:30 p.m.
For more information on the American Meteor Society, visit their Facebook page here.
ORIGINAL: 02/16/2023, 11:50 A.M.
Multiple agencies are investigating reports of an unknown object falling from the sky in Hidalgo County on Wednesday night.
Residents in South Texas felt the ground shake and heard what sounded like an explosion as a possible meteor entered the atmosphere on Wednesday, officials said.
Home surveillance videos shared by @disdikmark (via Twitter) in McAllen, Texas, near the Mexico border, show everything shaking as a loud boom scares a bird and a chicken.
“Houston Air Traffic Control received reports from two aircrafts that they saw a meteorite west of McAllen,” Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra tweeted Wednesday.
“Where the exact point of impact is unknown. No reports of any damage in that area have been received,” added Sheriff Guerra.
The National Weather Service reported NOAA satellites that observe lightning detected a signal that may have been the meteor entering the atmosphere.
“One of the satellite tools we use is the Geostationary Lightning Mapper, and it measures lightning as observed from space. GLM detected a signal at 5:23 PM with no storms around,” the agency tweeted.
