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Was it a meteor, a fireball, space debris? No one knows for sure what Windsor resident Shawn Bastien saw streaking across the sky during a night walk Tuesday.
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“Out of the corner of my eye I saw something strange,” Bastien said. “I took my phone quickly and recorded it.”
What he recorded is about 12 seconds of a fiery-looking streak moving directly across the night sky and depicting the appearance of a moving flare.
“What I noticed was just this strange fireball moving,” he said. “After I stopped recording … I saw it as it kept going north to Detroit.”
The 40-year-old music teacher said the burning object disappeared behind the Detroit skyline from his vantage point near Pillette Road and Seminole Street.
Bastien posted his video on social media, including on his Facebook page.
He said that many people were “really amazed” by the phenomenon, with some suggesting that it could have been space junk or a satellite that entered the atmosphere.
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“That would really make sense, something that gets into the atmosphere that way, the way it almost looks like an airplane or a jet that just goes … forever in a line,” Bastien said. “He kept going to Detroit. And I thought, that’s really weird. “
The Star reached out to members of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Windsor branch, for an opinion on what Bastien’s video captured.
“From the video I’ve seen, I doubt it’s a meteor because of how slow it moves,” RASC member Starr Livingstone said in an email.
“Probably space junk. A spent rocket or satellite. Meteorites tend to travel much faster across the sky in 2-3 seconds. “
Bastien said he previously witnessed a meteor shower, also known as shooting stars, and agreed that they move faster across the sky.
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What he saw Tuesday night didn’t seem to be going down, either.
“Instead of just going to the ground, it was almost like flying (straight to Detroit).”
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He said there was no audible sound.
“This thing is literally this thing burning up in the sky, going in a straight line, just heading somewhere,” Bastien said.
The Star’s inquiries to various federal agencies were empty and, as of press time, the Canadian Space Agency was investigating the event.
Reference-windsorstar.com