A video shared on Facebook claims to show a meteor shooting across the sky in Mission, Texas.

Verdict: False

This video is miscaptioned. An astrophysicist said that the object appears to be a rocket launch.

Fact Check: 

A two-foot meteorite crashed into Mission, Texas last week, causing a loud noise and shaking homes within the area, according to NBC News. Authorities reported that there were no injuries or property damage, USA Today reported.

A Facebook video allegedly shows footage of the meteor streaking across the sky as a bystander looks on. “Last night in Texas…” the caption reads. “A meteor fell in Mission, Texas around 5-5:30 pm, making a loud bang, shaking houses in a 10 mile radius. This was filmed over McAllen. 6 miles from Mission.”

This video is miscaptioned, however. The buildings in the video match a location in Daytona Beach, Florida, as seen on Google Maps. An astrophysicist and a NASA representative both confirmed the object is not a meteor.  

“The indicated object seems to be going too slowly to be a meteor and is more likely a space launch in Florida,” Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell confirmed in an email to Check Your Fact. (RELATED: Does This Video Show A Meteor Hitting The Baltic Sea In August 2022?)

“The video in question is NOT of the Texas fireball,” A spokesperson for NASA said in an email to Check Your Fact. “My team here geolocated this video to Daytona Beach, Florida…to be precise. It [the post] looks like a video of a launch from the Cape, probably Space-X (looks like the February 6 launch). It’s too slow and lasts too long to be a meteor, but the big thing is that it is going up, not down.”

This is not the first time misinformation about natural phenomena has spread online. Check Your Fact recently debunked a claim a video showed a crack in the Earth’s crust from the Turkey-Syria earthquake.