Huge meteorite spotted by 2 aircraft in Texas, residents terrified as loud explosion heard

Texas, a state in the South Central region of the US, experienced due to an alleged meteorite hit. The meteorite was spotted by two aircraft on Wednesday over Mission in South Texas and parts of McAllen, the police said.

In a tweet, Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra said, "Was informed by my Federal partners that Houston Air Traffic Control received reports from two aircraft that they saw a meteorite west of McAllen." 

In a Facebook post, the Alton Police Department said that their communications centre had gotten numerous calls about what sounded to be a "loud explosion" that had been heard around the city shortly after 5 pm. They noted that several nearby jurisdictions had also received similar calls and were looking into the situation. Less than 10 kilometres away from Mission, in the village of Alton, the police chief claimed that locals there had also noticed the explosion. "I do know it was widespread. Multiple cities receiving the same call."

'Houses shook', says Texans

The police were informed around 8:30 pm that a meteorite had been observed in Texas. The location of the meteorite's impact is still unknown. Further, a few Texans said that their homes started shaking because of the intensity of the explosion. However, there have been no reports of any damage in that area. People claim that they "heard the earth shake." 

Meanwhile, social networking sites got flooded with images of the reported meteorite, but the credibility of the images is unknown. One user who posted about the meteorite on Facebook claimed to have felt a "rumble or explosion." Another Texan asserted that "houses shook" and "everyone heard the loud noise and house shaking."

How devastating can a meteorite be?

Meteors are different from meteorites. Solid fragments of debris known as meteorites typically originate from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Usually, meteors don't cause any damage to Earth since they burn up and vaporise before they even touch the ground. But meteorites can strike the Earth and inflict some degree of damage.

The National Weather Service has shared an image from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM). "The image means that there was a flash in the atmosphere that was bright enough for our NOAA satellites to detect at or around 5:23 pm (local time) today", said the NWS.