Late March of this year saw an uncanny number of fireball reports, with sightings in California, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio occurring between the 17th and 23rd, including one that produced a meteorite that damaged a house in Texas on the 21st. This sudden increase in sightings of the fiery meteors is occurring despite no major meteor showers being due this time of year, and the pattern of their sightings suggests that this is not a case of reporting bias—where a normal number of events would appear to be multiplied due to a greater number of reports—but instead appears to be a genuine increase in fireball activity.

This sudden spike in fireball occurrences was recorded by the American Meteor Society: while 1,587 and 1,425 reports were logged in January and February, respectively, this number shot up to 2,369 by March 27, a nearly 60 percent increase over the previous month. Fireball sightings were also reported earlier in the month in France on March 8 and Germany on March 11, and Canada’s west coast on the 3rd.

The fireball that streaked over Texas on March 21 was bright enough to be seen in the late afternoon sky; estimated to have been one ton in mass when it entered the atmosphere, the flaming meteor was traveling fast enough to generate a sonic boom, and exploded with the force of 26 tons of TNT. The explosion was bright enough to be registered by lightning detection sensors on NOAA’s GOES satellites, and scattered debris across the community of Bammel, an urban area north of Houston, with one cantaloupe-sized fragment being recovered from the bedroom of one house after crashing through the dwelling’s roof.

While it is easy to assume that we’re experiencing a larger-than-usual number of fireball occurrences, it remains to be seen as to whether the Earth is being hit by more debris than usual, or if there are more reports coming in for an otherwise typical number of incidents. However, a higher number of meteorites are being recovered after striking the ground than usual, suggesting that there are indeed more fireballs streaking across the sky than normal.

“We might see 10 meteorite recoveries a year worldwide. We had three recoveries in a week or ten days,” remarked Mike Hankey, the head of the American Meteor Society, in regards to the number of recovered fragments.

The AMS found that individual fireball events that generated 50 or more reports more than doubled over March 2026, with a similar increase in events that produced 100 or more reports. While the number of reports has been increasing over the years due to the greater availability of doorbell and dashcams, this pattern suggests that there is a genuine spike in fireball events.

If there is an increase in the number of meteors striking the Earth, that begs the question: where are they coming from? Although there are no major meteor showers this time of year—the Lyrids aren’t due until mid-April—”meteor showers in general aren’t really known for fireballs anyway,” according to Hankey. However, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, Bill Cooke, points out that fireballs tend to peak during the Northern Hemisphere’s spring.

“For reasons we don’t fully understand, the rate of very bright meteors climbs 10 to 30 percent during weeks around the vernal equinox,” Cooke explained, with fragments surviving their fiery plunge to the ground more often this time of year.

However, Hankey pointed out that, with a spike roughly double what would be seen this time of year, the sheer number of events goes beyond a seasonal increase, suggesting that there has been a genuinely mysterious increase in fireball activity.