A bird? A plane? Meteor grazes skies above New York City: NASA

New York has been the backdrop to countless "end of the world" storylines in film and TV.

But on Tuesday an actual meteor shot over the city's iconic Statue of Liberty before disintegrating high above Manhattan, NASA's Meteor Watch said in a post on Facebook.

Residents flooded the internet with reports of a fireball in the sky, with some describing the sensation of an earthquake, and others recounting the sound of a thunderstorm.

"At 34,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended...