Video: Fireball in Colorado sky scares off would-be thief

DENVER (KDVR) — The meteor that many people saw streaking across the sky early Sunday morning thwarted an apparent theft, according to surveillance video.

A Denver business owner got an alert on his phone from his security system that his cameras captured some motion at his location. At first, they thought the bright light seen in the video was a neighbor with a flashlight trying to scare off a thief.

“It made him jump out of the truck and take off,” said David Garcia, who works with the company.

“The owner here showed me video of someone trying to steal the truck, and as the meteor went by, a couple flashes of bright lights scared the thief out of the truck. It made him jump out of the truck and take off,” Garcia said. 

The bright light in the night sky seen by many people across the Denver area was later determined to be a meteor. “I knew nothing about the meteor. Evidently, the would-be thief didn’t either,” Garcia joked.

The bright light startled the thief, who dropped a crowbar used to pry open the truck, along with a knife and a whistle. 

“I was telling the owner, ‘You need to get some lights like that, some motion detector lights like that,” Garcia said.

This was the second time someone has tried to steal a truck from this business. Garcia has some advice for would-be thieves: “Look in the sky first before you try to steal something,” he said.

The owner doesn’t think the thief can be identified from the video.