Yesterday afternoon, I was practicing piano when I heard a large bang. Since we’re not that far from Fort Devens, loud bangs aren’t that unusual. Devens frequently has training sessions where they’re setting off grenades, mortars, and all sorts of other munitions, and it’s just part of the deal when living in this area. This sounded different though. There was a low-frequency component to it that didn’t sound normal to me. Normally, I’d investigate something like this further, but I was in the middle of practicing and assumed that whatever caused it wasn’t local, so it would be a waste of my time to find the source.
Later on in the day, while glancing through Facebook posts, I discovered that others had also heard the bang. In fact, people in most of eastern and central Massachusetts and parts of New Hampshire and Road Island had also heard it. A bit later, the news reported that it had been determined to be a meteor that exploded over the ocean east of Cape Cod. I searched for more information and came across footage posted by people, taken from security cameras and dash cams. Most of the videos were pretty boring, just the sound of the bang and the sky lighting up,, but one taken from New York actually showed the meteor descending through the atmosphere, although I’m still not convinced this one is real. Anyway, mystery solved and I moved on to other things.
This afternoon, a thought occurred to me. We have security cameras,, and one faces east with a partial view of the sky. Perhaps I had recorded something. I wasn’t expecting much. The view of the sky was pretty limited, and it was unlikely the camera was pointed at a location that would actually show the meteor, but perhaps I could see the flash in the sky.
I logged into the security camera server, opened the camera’s history page, and selected the time of the event, which, according to the news, was at 2:06 PM EDT on Saturday, May, 30, 2026. Surprisingly, I did capture something. Not much, but it still is a record of the event. The camera I was using is on the side of the house, facing east towards our backyard. At 2:06, there is clearly a flash, and when the video is slowed down, you can see the light strafing the chimney. It’s actually pretty amazing. It was an overcast day in our area, as you can see from the sky in the background, and the area to the right of the video is filled with rather tall trees, yet the flash was able to penetrate through and actually appear on the video.
It’s possible that what I’m seeing is something completely different, but given the matching times, I’d be surprised if that is the case. So it looks like I caught evidence of the meteor explosion.
