Nizar Samir Al Murr was in his car driving through the snowy roads of Mount Sannine when his built-in car camera caught the moment in which a falling meteor passed by the skies of the Sannine mountain.
Shocked as anyone, it is evident in the video that he did not expect to see the rocky body casually flying in the sky of Lebanon and exploding in colorful lights.
A “what is this?!” exclamation is heard in the video as the meteor sped down and then sparkled, glowing the nighty sky.
When Nizar slow-motioned the video, the meteor is shown crystal clear -and somehow greenish in color – falling and glowing through the night.
He said that this meteor is one of the biggest meteors ever recorded in the Middle East, and apparently Nizar was not the only one who saw the falling star but was the only one lucky enough to catch it on video.
A number of people commenting on his Facebook post were relieved that someone was able to catch what they witnessed with their own bare eyes: The beautiful moment the sky suddenly brightened, an hour and a half before midnight.
However, some people questioned the factual claim behind a meteor showing during this time of the year.
A Facebook user commented, “That something that entered the atmospheric field of the earth… It might be a falling satellite… Or just something else… But it definitely entered our atmosphere.”
Two other users replied to his comment, saying: “Debris from space… this time is not a meteor shower peak… the peak was on January, 4,” and, “Fireball, happens all the time, especially on some specific meteor showers. Super cool.”
Nonetheless, a statement from an official geologist regarding the identity of the falling cosmetic object has not been made yet, which leaves the facts to our imagination and own analysis.
Some people linked the falling meteor with the earthquake that hit Turkey on January 24, and that also hit Lebanon but in much less strength (causing no casualties in Lebanon unlike Turkey).
However, Nizar explained that, even though the date of the video posted on Facebook shows that it was taken on January 24th, it was actually taken on January 21st but was only downloaded on the 24th, which leads Nizar to believe that the correlation between the two incidents is unlikely.
Watch the full video of the meteor falling in ‘normal’ speed and in slow-motion here: