A Hunter resident has captured the moment a bright meteor streaked across the sky in Newcastle on Thursday night.
Sal, a midwife at Maitland Hospital, was driving home from a shift at about 6.30pm on 21 May, when a bright object suddenly lit up the heavens near Fletcher.
She says the glowing marvel appeared suddenly during wet weather before vanishing within seconds.
“I just, in the corner of my eye, saw a really big flash of light,” she said.
“Then as I looked up to see where it was, it had pretty much gone already.
“It was so bright.
“I didn’t think it was a shooting star or anything like that.
“I had no idea what it was actually.”
The brief but intense flash was enough to leave the Newcastle local stunned, especially after discovering her dashcam had managed to capture the moment on video.
“I was like, ‘Oh wow, that’s so cool,” Sal said.
“I haven’t really captured anything interesting on it before, thank goodness, but I wondered whether the dashcam would pan up that high.”
The sighting comes as reports of a meteor being witnessed across parts of NSW circulated online overnight, with social media quickly filling with videos and eyewitness accounts.
But for Sal, the experience initially felt more science fiction than astronomy.
“I might sound a little bit crazy by saying I thought it was a UFO,” she said.
“It was incredibly fast.
“One second it was there… and then it wasn’t.
“It just happened so quickly.”
Despite briefly considering pulling over to investigate further, Sal continued driving home from her job, through the rain before downloading the footage in her driveway and showing it to her partner.
“He told me that he had been seeing things online about this meteor everyone’s been seeing in the sky,” she told the Newcastle Weekly.
“So, that’s when I realised it was probably just a meteor.”
The video was later shared with family members, many of whom were amazed she had managed to capture the rare moment on camera.
“A lot of people, including myself, hadn’t seen one before,” Sal said.
“At the time, I wasn’t worried.
“I was just more curious.
“It was pretty cool.”
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