Fireball meteor spotted streaking across Southeast sky amid flood of shaking reports
Soon after the incident, the National Weather Service office in Atlanta was looking into reports of seismic activity, however, the U.S. Geological Survey does not show any earthquake activity in Georgia at the time of the boom. The American Meteor Society has received more than 140 reports of the fireball from multiple states across the Southeast.
Meteor spotted over South Carolina
Dashcam footage shows a meteor streaking across a clear blue sky over Anderson, South Carolina, on Thursday.
ATLANTA – A bright fireball meteor shot across the Southeast sky Thursday afternoon, startling anyone who heard or felt it, according to hundreds of social media posts and fireball reports submitted to astronomy organizations.
Between noon and 12:30 p.m. ET more than 140 reports of a fireball were submitted to the American Meteor Society website from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.
A fireball seen over Lexington, South Carolina on June 26, 2025.
(@gthrift/X / FOX Weather)
"This was the middle of the day, and it just came out of nowhere," one fireball report on the American Meteor Society read from Perry, Georgia.
A fireball is a very bright meteor – brighter than magnitude -4, roughly equivalent to the brilliance of Venus in the morning or evening sky. A bolide is a specific type of fireball that culminates in a spectacular explosion of light, often accompanied by visible fragments.
Visible satellite shows a smoke trail from an apparent meteor or fireball that streaked over northern Georgia on June 26, 2025.
(FOX Weather)
Soon after Thursday's incident, the National Weather Service office in Atlanta was looking into reports of seismic activity. However, the U.S. Geological Survey does not show any earthquake activity in Georgia at the time of the boom.
Photos from South Carolina show the bright orange streak moving across the blue sky.
A fireball streaking across the sky in South Carolina is highlighted in this image taken from video recorded on June 26, 2025.
(Kathryn Rose Farr/Facebook / FOX Weather)
Satellite imagery above showed a possible smoke trail around noon that stretched from Tennessee into northern Georgia.
Fireball seen over South Carolina
Video shows a possible meteor shooting across the sky over Lexington, South Carolina on June 26, 2025 around noon.
NOAA's GOES East satellite Geostationary Lightning Mapper captured the bright flash of the meteor near the North Carolina-Virginia border.
If you witnessed the fireball and captured a photo or video, share those at foxweather.com/connect.