Doorbell camera captures insane footage of sonic boom as half-ton meteor crashes in Texas
Video doorbells have helped us immensely over the years capturing way more than just who the stranger is banging at the door or the odd late-night wildlife encounters.
Since Ring doorbells came out, we've seen a creepy Aztec 'death whistle' and the terrifying near-miss moment a crane smashed into a family home.
Now, another bizarre event has made the list - a sonic boom has been captured by a doorbell camera in Texas.
The event happened on February 15 last year in a quiet, residential area.
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In the video, everything seems normal in a peaceful yard, but then, out of nowhere, a bright light flashes across the sky. This is then followed by a loud sonic boom that sends the birds flying off in a frenzy.
Sonic booms occur when an object moves faster than the speed of sound which would probably startle anything in its vicinity.
In this case, the object happened to be a half-tonne meteor, weighing about 454 kg, later confirmed by the US space agency NASA.
According to local reports, the meteor began to break apart as it hit the Earth's atmosphere at about 6:00 pm before crashing near McAllen, Texas.
On the back of the incident, NASA stepped in to comment to reassure the public: "Although meteorites tend to hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds, they slow as they travel through the atmosphere, breaking into small fragments before hitting the ground.
They went on to say that meteorites 'cool rapidly' and so don’t pose much of a risk to people.
They also shared a report about where the pieces of this particular meteor likely ended up on the ground.
"The meteor seen in the skies above McAllen is a reminder of the need for NASA and other organisations to increase our understanding and protection of Earth, to combine scientific and engineering expertise to advance human space exploration, to integrate terrestrial and planetary research for furthering our understanding of the solar system, and to promote successful space missions by mitigating risk," NASA added.
What's even crazier is that the event was also picked up by a Geostationary Lightning Mapper, which is typically used to map lightning.
It caught a bright flash of light just before 5:30 pm, though there was no thunderstorm activity in the area to associate it with.
There's no denying camera tech today picks up wild things we might have otherwise missed or not been able to explain!