NEWS

"Balls of fire" throw social media into frenzy

Staff and wire reports

Local law enforcement received multiple reports of “balls of fire” flying across the night sky.

Numerous people across the state are reporting flying objects. This was taken in the Orosi area.

"I was outside when I noticed a bright ball of light flying over Orosi from west to east. The closer it got the bigger it got. It made me think of NASA testing in the desert during the day. As it got closer it split into two balls of light flying side by side. I ran inside to grab my phone which took less than 10 seconds. Once I came back out it was already too far from me," said Fidel Lua of Orosi. "I used my cell phone camera to zoom in as best I could and was able to record  for a bit before it disappeared."

FAA officials said this was not an aviation event but most likely a meteor shower.

Delta Aquarid meteor shower to light up night sky

Others speculated it was space junk. The sightings caused a frenzy online and sent social media into a guessing whirlwind.

Residents in Tulare County were not the only ones who spotted the light. Reports were made concerning the light all across the state.

What was it really?

The rocket body of the Chinese CZ-7 re-entered the atmosphere Wednesday night, U.S. Strategic Command spokeswoman Julie Ziegenhorn confirmed according to the Associated Press. That’s when people in Nevada, Utah and California took to social media to report a small fireball streaking across the sky.

Photographer Ian Norman was taking pictures of the night sky with friends in Alabama Hills, California, near the eastern Sierra Nevada, when he saw the light and started recording, thinking the flash was a meteor.

“It was really strange to see something that bright,” he said Thursday. “I thought it was just a really big meteor, but it was so slow-moving, I had never seen anything like that.”

The former SpaceX engineer heads out a few nights every month, but it was the first re-entry he’s seen.

“It was a cool experience, it was beautiful to see it going across the sky,” Norman said.

Further east in Utah, Matt Holt was outside a public library in Provo amid a large group playing “Pokemon Go” when he noticed the bright, colorful flash of light. Soon, others spotted it, too.

“I didn’t know what I was seeing because I’ve never seen space debris,” said Holt, a student at Brigham Young University. “It looked kind of like a meteor, but it was going much slower.”

Holt said it lasted for about a minute. He later learned that the flash was a Chinese rocket, but it was mysterious at the time.

“I didn’t feel afraid. I was excited. I was in awe at the science of space,” he said Thursday.

The rocket took off June 25 from China’s Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, according to the website of the Aerospace Corp., which provides research-and-development and advisory services to the U.S. Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, among others.

In announcing the launch of the new-generation rocket, China said it marked a milestone in its space program, keeping it on schedule to place its second space station into orbit this year.

Rockets heading to orbit shed components that fall back to Earth. Components that fall back from space at high speed heat up due to friction with the atmosphere and break up as increasing density causes a rapid slowdown. But some pieces may survive.

Of 27 previous re-entries this year, witnesses reported seeing five, according to the Aerospace Corp. website.

The most recent was the body of a Russian rocket launched in mid-July from Baikonur cosmodrome. People on New Zealand’s South Island spotted the re-entry several days later.

The Delta Aquarid meteor shower, which peaks Thursday and Friday. Though it's an average meteor shower compared to others throughout the year, you can still see up to 20 meteors per hour.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported this event as a meteor shower. Reporting by the Associated Press was used in this story.