Night owls awake in New Hampshire and Maine got a special show after midnight on Tuesday when a “fireball” streaked across the sky.

Sgt. Tim Farris was on patrol for the Portland, Maine, Police Department watching for speeders when his dashcam caught the fiery streak. The “meteor (or alien spaceship),” as the police department’s Facebook described it, lit up the sky around 12:30 a.m.

“Let’s hope the visitors are friendly,” the post continues. “They could just be some of Stephen King’s friends on there way to visit him. Whom ever they are I’m sure we could win them over with a whoopie pie.”


Reporters in Maine and New Hampshire also described the celestial sight as a fireball. According to the American Meteor Society, a fireball is another term for a very bright meteor.

Though Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire was shrouded in fog and unable to see the streak, they posted to Facebook that they were also getting preliminary reports of a fireball and encouraged anyone who witnessed it to report it to the American Meteor Society.

The Sabattus, Maine, Police Department also caught the midnight meteor on a dashcam as it brightened the sky.

The flash was reportedly visible in all of New England, as well as in parts of Canada, and down to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, according to the American Meteor Society, with more than 150 sightings reported last night.

“One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in the night sky,” one witness from Framingham reported. “I was driving east on the mass pike heading home when there was flashing behind me, then the sky in front of my car started to light up. Looking out my left car window I could see what seemed to be a large greenish fire ball breaking apart and moving very fast heading to my best guess east or northeast almost the same direction I was going.”