PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY/WJBF) – Social media lit up Thursday afternoon with reports of a fireball streaking across the sky. The fireball was spotted along the southeast U.S., including near the border of Virginia and North Carolina, around noon.

The NOAA Satellites account on the social media platform X noted that its satellite lightning detectors can sometimes pick up these bright meteors, which are known as bolides.

They posted a gif image that shows the quick flash captured by the satellite around the Virginia/North Carolina border.

NWS Charleston, SC also posted about the fireball on its X account. “It is not certain, but the satellite-based lightning detection shows a streak within cloud free sky over the NC/VA border, over Gasbury, VA.”

Bryan Jennings Updyke captured video of it on his vehicle dashcam. The streak appears in the bright blue sky, on the right side of your screen about 15 seconds into the video. This video was obtained by WJBF.

Another Nexstar station, WJZY, obtained this video showing a similar sight.

The American Meteor Society received numerous reports which are logged on its website.

As the mystery unfolded, WAVY Meteorologists Jeff Edmondson and Don Slater had theories on what may have caused this. Don Slater said it was likely caused by space debris, sometimes called space junk. Another possibility is StarLink. He said these satellites are highly susceptible to any kind of solar activity. Extra solar activity expands the earth’s outer atmosphere slightly, causing drag on StarLink satellites. Edmondson said since this happened during the daytime, the object was too bright to be a typical small meteor. He believes this object was either large meteor traveling at a fast speed, or possibly a smaller one traveling even faster. He noted some reports say the fireball was orange or yellow, indicating the presence of sodium or iron. 

It also happens that the Bootid meteor shower is currently active. According to the International Meteor Organization, it is expected to peak on June 27.

Cosmologist Paul Sutter says there is no doubt what it was, “We absolutely know what this was, this was a rock barreling through the atmosphere, coming straight out of outer space. We know it’s a meteor because of its speed and its altitude. This happened very, very high up. We’re talking 30 to 40 miles above the ground, and the speed of this fireball was somewhere around 10,000 miles per hour.”

Did you capture the phenomenon on camera? If so, we’d love to see what you saw. Please share via this link.

This is a developing story.