A mysterious fireball that appeared over Thailand's capital of Bangkok on Monday was captured on dashcam video as it sped toward Earth before apparently burning out.
The bright fireball was spotted by residents around 8:40 a.m. local time Monday, leaving a trail of
smoke across the sky, the Bangkok Post reported.
According to The Guardian, the sizable fireball could be seen some 125 miles away from the capital but a meteorologist told the newspaper that it did not represent a major incident. The video of the streak from two different cams has garnered more than 620,000 views on YouTube.
"There is a high possibility that the object spotted this morning . . . on social media, is an object from outer space," Saran Poshyachinda, Thailand's deputy director of the
National Astronomical Research Institute, told CNN.
"It looks like an asteroid traveling to Earth and grazing through the air and it turned into a fireball. It might not weigh that much, I think about a few kilograms," Poshyachinda continued, adding that the object appeared to burn up about 62 miles above the ground.
The Malaysian Digest reported that the fireball caused a stir on social media, creating conspiracy theories about the object being from "the Apocalypse and an alien invasion."
Prapee Wiraporn, president of Thailand's Astronomical Society, tried to calm fears with a statement.
"This is a natural, normal phenomenon because small meteors fall to earth every day but what we saw was similar to one over Chelyabinsk in Russia two years ago," Wiraporn said, according to the Malaysian Digest.
Some had their own humorous takes on the object on social media.
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