Sinaloa, Mexico - Civil Protection agencies in Sinaloa were alerted to search for the remains of a supposed meteorite that had fallen in Sinaloa territory last Wednesday.

Civil Protection state director, Czech Ismael Landeros, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed that at 18:50 pm on January 4 they had detected a celestial body that came into the atmosphere and could hit somewhere in the mountains of Sinaloa de Leyva, on the border with Chihuahua, or in the municipalities of Salvador Alvarado and Mocorito.

Residents of these two municipalities reported a "huge fireball" that quickly descended from heaven and was divided into three parts before disappearing, so they called the police and news radio.

A team of astrophysicists joined rescue personnel to track the impact of the object, and they postulated that it could also be space junk, according to Civil Protection.

The phenomenon was also reported by residents of the municipalities of Ahome, on the border with Sonora, as well as Angostura and Guasave.

However, astrophysicists at the State Science Center, and Emiliato Kokima Tatiana Teran, who make up the search team, ruled that it is a meteorite because no impact was captured by the Seismic Network of Sinaloa.

In 1871, a farmer in the Bacubirito community of Sinaloa de Leyva found the world's fifth largest meteorite, weighing nearly 50 tons.