Last week, Brian York was driving along Route 26 in South Paris, Maine when something caught his eye – a giant burning fireball falling from the sky. He picked up his cellphone and started to record, eventually putting that video up on YouTube…

York, in an interview with WMTW News 8, said the sight was certainly a peculiar one, “It didn't look like anything that I've ever seen before. It didn't look like any footage I've ever seen of a meteorite or comet. It just struck me as odd.”

YouTube commenters started to guess as what it could be. Some suggested it could be just a cloud formation, a tornado, a meteorite air burst, or even Sandra Bullock. York himself didn’t, “dare to wager one way or another what it is.” He hoped that an expert might chime in. And guess what? An expert did just that.

Edward Gleason, staff astronomer at the Southworth Planetarium at the Univesity of Southern Maine, told the station, it looked like space junk -- pieces of a satellite breaking up and falling to earth.”

Meanwhile, Mr. York is refuting accusations that this is a doctored video or some kind of stunt, writing on WMTW’s Facebook page, “…it is definitely not fake. The video that everyone has seen is just how i filmed it. I had a hard enough time getting it uploaded to my computer. Let alone somehow faking it or edititing [sic] it.”

More info: YouTube, WMTW