Bright fireball over New York and Ontario produces sonic boom
A bright fireball was observed over Western New York and Southern Ontario around 09:10 – 09:16 UTC on May 27, 2026 (05:10 – 05:16 EDT). Several witnesses reported hearing a boom associated with the event.
Many people in Western New York and Southern Ontario saw the fireball early Wednesday morning, with some describing the sonic boom it produced as a powerful thunder. A person from Elma, southeast of Buffalo, said the sound woke her up.
Tim Collins, research associate in astronomy at the Buffalo Museum of Science, described the object as a meteor/bolide that broke up after entering Earth’s atmosphere.
The event was captured by multiple web cameras and on NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-19 (GOES-19).
The New York fireball came less than two days after another camera-friendly meteor was recorded over Mayon volcano in the Philippines at 14:33 UTC on May 25.
Interestingly, that object crossed the sky near the erupting volcano before ending in a bright terminal flash. The event drew extra attention because PHIVOLCS later had to clarify that the meteor disintegrated in the atmosphere and did not strike Mayon’s slopes, after misleading AI-generated videos began circulating online.
More significant fireball and meteor reports are available in our Meteor activity archive.
Featured image: Fireball over Grand Island, Western New York, on May 27, 2026. Credit: Stephen Mathes, WGRZ-TV (stillshot from the video)
I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.
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