‘No threat to safety of community’

ON Friday evening, many island residents saw fiery objects falling from the sky, followed by a loud boom that shook windows and shut doors. Videos of the event were posted and shared on social media platforms with many residents expressing alarm.

But according to CNMI Homeland Security Emergency Management Special Assistant Franklin Babauta, there was no “threat to the safety of the CNMI community.”

Babauta conducted a press briefing on Saturday afternoon with HSEM public information officer Bernard Villagomez and, via teleconference, Patrick Doll, lead forecaster of the National Weather Service on Guam.

“We want the community to know that there’s no threat right now to our safety in the CNMI as far as we gathered,” Babauta said.

Villagomez said the CNMI Emergency Operations Center State Warning Point and the Department of Public of Safety received several calls from residents.

“We also reached out to the National Weather System regarding the situation,” he added.

According to Doll, based on his initial conversation with the EOC, “I stated that it sounded like a meteorite and, upon looking at the video that some folks sent us to our own Facebook page, I could confirm [that it was] definitely a meteorite…. You saw a large ball of fire and when it entered into the earth’s atmosphere and gravity it interacted with it that made the light glow. The meteorite can heat up to 10,000 Fahrenheit degrees. Once they get hot enough and reach what we call critical mass, it will develop basically small cracks, allowing the heat to penetrate deeper toward the core of it, and once it heats enough and moves to segregate…it [will make] a loud boom [with] smaller projectiles going out in different directions, at different angles and different velocity, and it looks somewhat like fireworks. You have rapid air expansion like lightning in a thunderstorm.”

He said NWS-Guam doesn’t track satellites or meteorites.

Variety tried to get a comment from Marianas Regional Fusion Center/Guam Homeland Security, and Joint Region Marianas, but as of press time Sunday evening, no response had been received yet.

For its part, the Federal Aviation Administration did not issue any particular notice to airmen for the Northern Marianas or Guam, Variety learned.

In December 2019, similar videos were posted on social media. Joint Region Marianas and the CNMI Emergency Operation Center State Warning Point issued a “no-threat” statement, but noted that a satellite launch in China corresponded with an FAA notice to airmen.