Melissa Schlarb was driving to her job at a bank in western North Carolina on what she thought would be an ordinary morning when the unthinkable happened: A cat plummeted out of the sky and exploded through her windshield.

It sounds impossible. It wasn’t.

Just moments earlier, the 28-year-old had been marveling at the sweep of a bald eagle overhead as she traveled toward Cherokee along a highway skirting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, CNN affiliate WLOS reported. The majestic bird was an unexpected sight — and then, suddenly, a troubling one.

“I’m not used to seeing them there, and I was like ‘Wow, that’s amazing,’” Schlarb told WLOS. “I realized it had something with it. Once I realized it was a cat that it had, it barely had a hold on it, it dropped it right on my windshield. It sounded like a bomb went off.”

The cat was already dead by the time it ended up in her car, she said. Whether the massive bird released the animal from its talons deliberately or simply lost its grip is unclear, but the impact was catastrophic.

“I could see the cat in my passenger seat. I have guts all over me, there’s glass everywhere,” Schlarb said. A driver who had been traveling behind her pulled over immediately, telling her he watched the entire surreal sequence unfold and helping guide her off US Highway 74.

Shaken and covered in blood, Schlarb called 911 and delivered a report that sounded like it came from a disaster movie.

“You may not believe me, but I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield,” the incredulous driver said on the recorded 911 call. “It absolutely shattered my windshield.”

The dispatcher, impressively calm in the face of chaos, let out a laugh.

“OK. I do believe you, honestly,” the dispatcher said in a recording obtained by The Associated Press. “Oh my goodness. Let’s see. I’ve heard crazier.”

Kendrick Weeks, Western Wildlife Diversity Program supervisor for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, told the AP the cat may have been roadkill scavenged by the eagle.

“But they can take animals the size of a cat,” Weeks said. “It is much harder for them to take a live cat than a dead cat. They usually don’t prey on something they don’t find palatable. And, scavenging is a common behavior in bald eagles.”

Raptors such as eagles can lose or release their prey for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the bird simply doesn’t have a secure hold, and other times the prey is struggling so violently, the raptor lets go to avoid being injured, according to Weeks.

Prey may also slip away if another bird harasses the raptor mid-flight or if the load becomes too heavy to carry any farther.

Bald eagles are listed as a threatened species and are native to North Carolina and much of the continent, according to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

Their population has been steadily rebounding in the state, with more than 200 nesting pairs now living there, according to Weeks. The birds typically weigh between roughly 6 1/2 to 13 1/2 pounds and can span 6 to 7 feet from wingtip to wingtip, Weeks told the AP.

Though still rattled, Schlarb says she’s thankful the surreal encounter caused no injuries, apart from the poor cat’s demise.

“I just thank God that it wasn’t a different scenario,” she said. “Even a shift a little bit more in my direction, that could have landed in my face. It could have been a completely different story. I may not even be here at this point.”