Skeptic

Now, a new study adds another layer of doubt. Loeb's team chose their search area in part based on data gathered by a seismic station on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, which picked up vibrations that seemed to be generated by the meteor's fiery, superfast trip through Earth's atmosphere. But those vibrations likely have a much more prosaic cause, according to the new research.

"The signal changed directions over time, exactly matching a road that runs past the seismometer," study leader Benjamin Fernando, a planetary seismologist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said in a statement.

"It's really difficult to take a signal and confirm it is not from something," Fernando added. "But what we can do is show that there are lots of signals like this, and show they have all the characteristics we'd expect from a truck and none of the characteristics we'd expect from a meteor."