'Here come the Men In Black!': Suspected meteor caught on dash cam in Victoria
A driver travelling along a remote road in central Victoria could not believe their eyes when the night sky lit up with what appeared to be a meteor.
The stunning moment was captured on dash cam on Tuesday just after 11pm and posted on Facebook.
This is the second meteor spotted on camera in Australia in less than a week. On Monday morning residents in Alice Springs were treated to a rare meteor shower that was captured on CCTV.
Commenters were stunned by the footage and speculated over what the flash of light was.
“What's Optimus Prime doing here?” one person asked.
“Here come the Men In Black!” another jokester said.
One person suggested the driver should have gone to investigate the strange light.
“I think the dash cam car could [have] gone over to see if the blob was there waiting,” the person wrote.
There have been reports of several other sightings across Victoria from Geelong to the Mornington Peninsula. Some people even spotted it in South Australia.
“My husband saw this last night in SA but his dash cam was facing the wrong way,” one woman said.
Monash University astronomer Michael Brown told Yahoo News that the light was most likely a bright meteor and “perhaps a basket ball size.”
He said the reason meteors can be seen by so many people, so far apart is because of the speed they travel, at “over 10 kilometres every second.”
For those concerned about the danger of the speeding basketball shaped meteors, Dr brown said most look more dangerous than they actually are.
“Most meteors are harmless and burn up at high altitude, only a few get low enough to produce an audible sonic boom.”
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