People have had ubiquitous cameras in their phones for a decade, but these fireballs happen way too fast to whip out your phone. The reason that we're seeing them more these days is because of the increasing prevalence of dashcams and home security cameras.

That's probably why the Russian one is so well documented. They have a dashcam culture

One of my fave videos is of the Russian guy who keeps driving and pulls his visor down like nothing happened even while a meteor near-misses: https://youtu.be/5bicUPQHcw4

That's a more focused and responsible driver than I'll ever be.

Had. It was a fad related to the scammers on the roads, and peaked a decade ago. Scammers disappeared/shifted to something else, barely anyone drives with a dashcam now.

As a completely uneducated guess, I’d argue more cameras of decent quality, and more of them with motion detection etc.

There’s certainly a case for the more cameras argument, though it doesn’t apply to this specific event: almost every UK news article about meteors, lightning storms, and at one point a sonic boom from a jet, features a recording from someone’s video doorbell.

Around 2003, I was driving home from San Francisco back to Danville late at night. After the 580 tunnel, as I crested the hill, the entire sky lit up bright green and I saw a huge glowing ball like this that lasted for a few seconds. These days, I'd have dashcam footage to show you. I was driving alone and the roads were pretty much empty, and it's kind of weird when something so unusual happens and you feel like the only one who saw it.

> kind of weird when something so unusual happens and you feel like the only one who saw it.

I was camping at a river with some friends some time ago in the summer, and we saw some meteor drawing a huge long line in the sky, it lasted quite a bit of time. Enough for me to call for my friends to get up and look at it, and they both saw it as well. Could never find any news about it though. Never seen anything like it since then.

The first time I saw Starlink I had a long think before asking anyone about it as describing a line of lights in the sky made me sound like a madman.

I saw a bright green huge one in Portland, Oregon USA in the 2004-2006 time period. Only tool I had was my eyes and brain to recall it (and I can still recall it well).

I told a few people about it and moved on. I’m guessing that’s the most common response.