People living on Vancouver Island were dazzled by a fireball streaking across the sky on Sunday night.
Earthquake seismologist with Natural Resources Canada Dr. John Cassidy tells Glacier Media it was an amazing sight for those who were lucky enough to experience it.
"There was a huge amount of interest, a lot of tweets, a lot emails," he says, adding he heard from people in Victoria, all the way to Tofino.
One of those lucky individuals was a man who asked only to be identified as Sean. He and his girlfriend were driving along Highway 19A during the clear night when something caught their eye.
“All of a sudden, a fireball in the sky lights up. I thought it was a flare at first,” he says.
Sean describes the spectacle, which he caught on camera, as the “coolest” thing he’s ever seen.
"The video doesn’t do it justice, it was so much bigger and cooler than the video,” he says.
Cassidy says meteors are pretty common.
"They’re happening all the time, every day, around the world. It is sort of like earthquakes, the big ones are rare,” he tells Glacier Media.
This one was big enough that it made it rare, according to Cassidy.
“We see one every couple of years like that, every year or two, that bright and that significant.”
Cassidy hasn't heard if this one hit the Earth (it's rare but not impossible, he says).
“It’s big enough that it was burning up as it came through the atmosphere,” he continues. "These are many kilometres above the surface and often they’ll break up and there will be explosions as they fragment and people will see the flashes and will hear very loud booms from the explosion.”
As for Sean, he says it’s been an adventure.
"It’s nice to have something positive to talk about,” he says.
