After a New Jersey man tweeted footage of a fireball flying over New York City, two women say it could have been a meteorite after finding a crater nearby — but experts aren't so sure.
Did a meteorite fly over New York City recently?
Jeremy Settle of New Jersey tweeted stunning footage on Jan. 9 of a fireball over lower Manhattan.
The burst of light from the sky was seen falling just south of Battery Park, not far from the Statue of Liberty and World Trade Center. It slowly faded into the atmosphere and was quickly gone.
And over in Toms River, New Jersey, two sisters said they found a mysterious crater on the beach.
Jean Muchanic and her sister, Nora, were walking along the beach when they encountered a 2-foot-deep crater and found a black rock at the bottom. Smaller rocks were nearby.
"This thing was perfect, as if something had hit there and blasted out," Jean told Inside Edition. "We either have a meteorite or a really ugly paper weight."
Experts aren't so sure what it could be. Some say the rock isn't dense enough to be a meteorite and that it could just be coal.
“Meteorites surprise us all the time,” famed physicist and bestselling author Dr. Michio Kaku told Inside Edition. “They come in all sorts of shapes, and sizes, and densities. So, this does not fill the usual classification but it cannot be ruled out.”
There were nearly 200 reports along the East Coast of people seeing the fireball, according to The American Meteor Society.
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