Meteor lights up the sky in North Florida, Georgia

Jania Kadar and her friend were cleaning up in the backyard after a gathering of friends in the east of Tallahassee when the night sky was lit up.

"It was as if someone had lit the stadium lights," said the Tallahassee resident. "I look up and there is this blue-green flash. It looks almost day.

"It lasted, it took a few seconds," she said about the sighting around midnight. "The second time my brain wanted me to say" What is it? "It was over …"

What Kadar saw was actually a meteorite or meteorite that had crossed the sky and was visible through a broad band of South Georgia and North Florida. The fireball was caught by night owls, hangers and surveillance videos across the region.

The National Weather Service, Tallahassee, captured the block of space rocks that crossed the sky with its GOES satellite system.

"He basically has a global lightning mapper and detects lightning flashes from lightning when we have thunderstorms," ​​said Kelly Godsey, an NWS meteorologist.

They also watched social media reports from Valdosta, Georgia, Tallahassee, Wakulla County, Gainesville and Jacksonville.

For the Tallahassee area, it would have been a brief illumination of 5 seconds between about 11:52 and 11:54, said Godsey. He may even have fallen to the ground.

"We have heard reports that he has landed near Perry, Florida, which is consistent with the GLM data, but can not confirm anything," NWS tweeted. "The satellite data suggest that * if * it landed, however, it was in FL."

This NWS confirmation was an ah-ha moment for Kadar on Sunday morning. After the flash, she and her friend immediately began to speculate, and even to guess, what they saw.

"We drank a few beers and there was that …" she said. "At the time, we played with pretty extraterrestrial theories. Of course, our husbands were unconscious. They were doing things inside and outside the house.

UFOs on Tallahassee?

The moment even surprised those who looked at the stars for years. Andy Flower, who has been studying the sky for six years as a member of The Tallahassee Astronomical Society was packing with a colleague after a night spent at the organization's observatory near the Cypress Landing boat ramp on Lake Miccosukee.

About fifteen people had already come to observe the new moon.

"Everyone was already gone and all of a sudden, the whole sky was lit up," he said.

Flower has seen dozens of meteors in her life, even two small ones earlier in the night. But nothing like it.

"The whole region has been lit by the light of day," he said. "We were like" what is …? Is there a helicopter above us, a searchlight? ""

"We looked up and saw a trail in the sky directly above the head that ended in a fireball about halfway to the horizon toward the parking lot. "

It will be a memorable evening for Flower, Kadar and others in the Big Bend.

"It was absolutely amazing," Kadar said. "It was like a ball of energy that crossed the sky."

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