Did you see it? Kansas residents among those who spotted fireball soaring in the sky
Dozens of people in Kansas and Oklahoma reported seeing a daytime fireball soaring across the sky Monday afternoon.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the American Meteor Society had 27 reports come in about a fireball seen over the two states about 1:15 p.m. An eyewitness in Bixby, Oklahoma shared a video of the fireball.
Residents from Wichita, Greensburg, Arkansas City, Mulvane and Kingman reported seeing the fireball. The locations in Oklahoma where people reported seeing it were in the northern portion of the state, according to a spotting map.
Longtime professional meteorite hunter, Steve Arnold, is out in an area east of El Dorado looking for what could be fragments of the meteorite.
Arnold spent Wednesday morning driving around in his truck, looking for possible fragments of the rock.
“I’ve got an E-bike and was out tooling around, doing a little bit of walking, basically sampling the dirt roads where I have freedom to roam,” Arnold said in a phone call. “If there’s a black rock sitting on the road, whether its walnut or basketball size, it’s much easier to spot in the grass or trees.”
So far, Arnold has not found any fragments.
“If there were 20 rocks on the road this morning, I would have picked them up... it’s like an Easter egg hunt,” Arnold said. “There is a chance this totally burned out and I just wasted my time.”
Meteorites are not rare in Kansas, especially in the western part of the state.
“Western Kansas is a good place to find meteorites because the wide-open country has few trees and terrestrial rocks at the surface and most of the region is heavily cultivated but not otherwise extensively developed,” according to the Kansas Geological Survey out of the University of Kansas.
In 2005, Arnold discovered a 1,400-pound meteorite buried seven feet underground in Kiowa County.
This story was originally published December 4, 2024 at 3:33 PM.