Meteor lights up sky over High Country

HIGH COUNTRY – It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it's a meteor shooting across the night sky.

On Friday, Aug. 30, High Country residents awoke to the news that a meteor had entered Earth’s atmosphere during the early hours of the morning.

Lauri Miller with Appalachian State University’s Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences reported to local news that officials with NASA had reached out to the department and indicated that pieces of a meteorite may have fallen around the Spruce Pine, Altapass or Ingalls areas.

Those who may suspect pieces of the meteorite may have landed around their property are encouraged to contact Research Operations and Laboratories Manager Anthony Love with App State. Love can be emailed at loveab@appstate.edu.

According to the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, security cameras inside the nonprofit nature preserve captured surveillance footage of the night sky lighting up outside of its entrance gate and the Wilson Center for Nature Discovery as the meteor passed overhead just before 1:15 a.m.

During the morning hours, local residents took to social media to share their own footage of the meteor taken by security cameras and shared their own experience of the phenomena as the news went viral.

Area meteorologists speculated the meteor may have made a close call to Earth’s surface or that it could be a piece of space debris as well.

A number of Avery County residents posted on social media that they heard an explosion resembling a sonic boom around 1:17 a.m., with some reporting it was loud enough to shake their home, while others said they slept through it.

According to social media posts, the light from the meteor could be seen from Banner Elk, Pineola, Crossnore, Foscoe, Minneapolis, Valle Crucis, Elk Park, Seven Devils, Sugar Mountain and across Watauga and Carter counties and into East Tennessee.