Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Both residents and tourists in the town of Vinales, located in western Cuba, claim to have witnessed a flare passing through the sky that was followed by a massive explosion – an incident that state media and NASA-affiliated organizations are attributing to a meteorite.
Last Friday, a "ball of fire and smoke trails" appeared in the sky and people in the area claimed that there was a rain of small black stones that didn’t cause any injuries or damage in Pinar del Rio province.
The first images of one of the stones that seem to have fallen in the area of ??#ValleDeLaPrehistoria in #PinardelRio begin to appear. Still not confirmed. Journalists and experts are already in the area. #Cuba #meteorite #meteor ?????????? pic.twitter.com/gRVnZ7Dt99
— Teacher From PR ???????????????? (@MaestroDEPR) February 1, 2019
Other witnesses, in places like Havana, claim to just have heard explosions.
Cuban media quickly denounced the idea that it was a plane crash and called the incident a "natural physical phenomenon". A team of specialists from Cuba's Geophysics and Astronomy institute was mobilized and sent to Pinar del Rio in order to try and confirm whether not it was a meteor strike.
You can hear the audio of the explosion at about 45 seconds through the following video, which shows locals gazing at a trail of smoke in the sky before becoming visibly and audibly shaken by the explosion.
#BREAKING: Just got this video from a friend in #PinardelRio who says they think the trail in the sky was left by a #meteorite, which shattered windows and made extremely loud sounds. Sounded like two #explosions. #cuba @WPLGLocal10 pic.twitter.com/AMmb9ZE6vB
— Hatzel Vela (@HatzelVelaWPLG) February 1, 2019
Additional photos and tweets appear to show meteor fragments and radar possibly detecting the object above western Cuba at one point.
Remnants of the meteor over Viñales in western Cuba evident in #Goes16 GLM, Split Window Difference, and Sulfur Dioxide viewshttps://t.co/yQsbCadv4ghttps://t.co/WRmGQbnXPC pic.twitter.com/L4gLjCF4n6
— Brendon (@brendonme) February 1, 2019
New Blog Post: @NOAA's #GOESEast's #GLM "sees" apparent #meteor flash in Western Cuba. @NWSKeyWest https://t.co/i58rlK8elO pic.twitter.com/CVx0uda4EV
— NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) February 1, 2019