Locals in Florida saw a mysterious, bright flash of light in the skies on Monday this week. Experts say that this event was most likely caused by a fireball.

The American Meteorological Society has revealed that it received more than 150 reports of this unusual bright light in the skies around 11:00 p.m. local time. An official statement from the agency said that the fireball seen in Florida was also observed in neighboring states of Georgia and Alabama.

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Apart from photos, videos of the fireball also went viral online including those caught by several dashboard cameras of the North Point Police Department in West Florida.

The fireball apparently zipped through the skies in a northwestern trajectory. It ended its blazing trail in the eastern part of Anna Maria Island off the coast of Manatee County, Florida.

The American Meteorological Society revealed that this meteor possessed a magnitude brighter than the planet Venus during a morning or night sky.

Astronomers and meteorologists say that more than 7,000 fireballs enter the Earth's atmosphere every day, but most of them are undetected since they usually appear over vast oceans and desolate regions where there are no cities or communities. A majority of these fireballs are also unseen since they enter our planet in the daytime.

Fireballs are meteors that originate from deep space. They have been floating around the solar system for around 4.5 billion years since the formation of Earth and all the other planets.

The brightest fireballs are often the largest ones since smaller ones burn up and disintegrate instantly upon entry into the Earth's atmosphere or just plunge into the ocean.

Fireballs can appear anywhere at any time, and most of them are older than the Earth.