Seen by 660 residents as far south as Eugene, Oregon, as far north as Enderby, British Columbia, and as far east as Idaho, officials say the mysterious object likely met its end over the town of Pilchuck, WA, on Highway 9, the American Meteor Society reported.
"Right now I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that it was a meteor," Mike Hankey, operations manager for the AMS, told Inverse. "I'm more like 95 percent certain."
— Parker Sayers (@ParkerSayers) July 30, 2017
Why all the uncertainty over what the green ball of fire might have been? Well, according to science, it has a lot to do with the object’s apparent lack of speed.
One of the first theories suggested was that the strange glowing thing could’ve been space trash reentering the atmosphere, but since most re-entries are scheduled, Hankey quickly tossed this explanation aside.
"Now, that is monitored pretty well," Hankey noted. "And they have a schedule of, like, 'This is expected to re-enter in this date at this place.' And there were no rescheduled re-entries."
While some observers are thinking more space-based scenarios, others within the dark realms of the internet are speculating that it wasn’t a fireball or meteor – it was a secret military operation. *dun, dun, dun*
According to this particular faction, the event was a response to escalating tensions between the US and North Korea. Go figure.
Unfortunately for meteor buffs, because this guy either disintegrated or skipped back into space 20 kilometers below the weather radar, there’s no concrete radar data to help get to the bottom of the mystery.
