Residents of Kinston were surprised by a fireball in the sky and an explosion on 4 December 1934, at about 1:15 in the afternoon. The first impression was that a moonshine still, or the city gasworks, had exploded outside of town somewhere. That quickly cleared up as reports of the fireball became available. It was seen by students at nearby East Carolina Teachers College (now ECU). Newspapers from the time report that the shock wave was felt in Jones, Craven and Greene Counties, as well as Pitt County. The fireball was observed by students in Goldsboro and Raleigh. The Curator of Geology at the Museum of Natural Sciences was Harry Davis, who later tracked the path of the meteorite across the state, through his correspondence with friends who saw the fireball trail over Charlotte. Source