As of Wednesday morning, the world still exists.

That may come as a surprise to some folks in Copiah County andothers across the country who witnessed the bright flash of alow-passing meteor late Tuesday night and assumed the worst.

“Everybody was freaking out and thought the world was coming to anend,” said Copiah County Emergency Management Director RandleDrane. “Hopefully, they watched the news and figured it out.”

Drane said Copiah County’s 911 dispatch received around 40 phonecalls just before 9 p.m. Tuesday as residents from around thecounty noticed the short, sharp glow of a meteor. Theextraterrestrial object was sighted across half the country as itburned through the atmosphere, causing similar confusion fromFlorida to Oklahoma.

In Copiah County, the confusion was multiplied by the presence ofMississippi National Guard aircraft that were performing nightexercises, Drane said.

“They heard that plane flying over last night, saw the light andthought the plane had crashed somewhere in Hopewell,” he saidWednesday. “I went to the office and we had the Hopewell VolunteerFire Department searching the area. But we watched the news thereat the office and saw it was a meteor.”

Dispatchers in Lincoln County reported no calls to the sheriff’soffice.