Here’s What That Crazy Fireball Streaking Across the Sky Actually Was

Americans took to Twitter Tuesday night to have a minor freakout over a mysterious fireball that streaked across the sky. Was it a bird? A Plane? Superman? Was Independence Day real after all?

According to military officials, the real answer was more mundane than an alien invasion: The streak of light burning across the sky in the U.S. was in fact debris from a Russian rocket re-entering the atmosphere.

U.S. Strategic Command spokeswoman Julie Ziegenhorn says the fireball, seen over Arizona, Nevada and California overnight, came from a Russian SL-4 rocket body booster launched on Monday, reports Associated Press.

Sometimes the truth isn’t stranger than fiction.