Meteor over Massachusetts causes explosion reports, sightings from Delaware to Montreal

Reports of explosions from people in New England on Saturday afternoon sent law enforcement agencies and others scrambling to understand what caused the double explosion that shook buildings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The American Meteor Society said that the explosions heard around 14.30 in the afternoon were actually caused by a meteor about 3 meters wide that entered the atmosphere north of Boston, around the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Robert Lunsford, the association’s Fireball Program Observer, said the group has received dozens of reports from Delaware to Montreal of people either hearing the double explosion, feeling the ground tremor or seeing the fireball, which resembles a shooting star in the daytime sky.

“It was definitely bigger than a normal fireball, about a meter wide,” he said.

However, Lunsford said the likelihood of the meteor hitting the ground is low.

“We need more information about the trajectory, speed and other aspects to know for sure whether it hit the ground, but if it hadn’t burned up it would have landed in the ocean,” he said. “Most of them burn before they hit the ground.”

In several states, people shared on social media how they felt buildings shaking. Several videos posted on X captured what sounded like two rapid explosions, with no fire, smoke or other visual causes.

Many people recorded the shaking they felt with the National Earthquake Information Center and reported it to the U.S. Geological Survey, agency spokesman Steve Sobie confirmed Saturday.

The agency asked, “Did you feel it?” He opened an event page according to the number. reports on its website. But he said there were no events recorded on the agency’s seismographs. This means that the shaking was not caused by an earthquake.