As I was saying...

Back on the 19th at around 5:30 in the morning, a large fireball was seen streaking over the skies from Washington to Montana, visible from as far away as Calgary, with various reports, particularly from Spokane, of a sonic boom or sound of explosions. It was even caught on video by a hospital security camera.

On the 17th, a small unknown asteroid disintegrated in the skies over Thule, Greenland, streaking across the sky in a fiery blaze and leaving a trail twisting in the currents of the upper atmosphere.

Just last night, the skies over Ithaca were lit up by a giant fireball the size of a quarter held at arm's length streaking overhead, causing alarm and numerous calls to 911.

As you can guess, it turns out that these things are a lot more common that you might think. After my recent musings, I dug up a little more information on the frequency of such bombardments...
According to calculations by NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, fireballs as bright as Venus appear somewhere over Earth more than 100 times a day. Fireballs as bright as the quarter Moon streak overhead roughly once every 10 days, and exploding asteroids as bright as a full Moon light up the skies about once every 5 months.

This doesn't get a whole lot of press because the vast majority of the things go unnoticed. Half of them occur during the day time and are nearly invisible in sunny skies. Because 70% of the planet is covered by uninhabited ocean, a corresponding 70% or so of the fireballs streak across empty expanses and go unseen. Cloud cover obscures some of the remaining ones. And most of the rest are missed simply because no one is looking up.

I remember seeing a giant green fireball blazing across the western Nebraska night sky spitting sparks as it went while looking out the car window as a kid, heading home from town.

More recently while sitting on the couch one evening just after sunset, I happened to look up to see something bright streaking across the sky and leaving a vapor trail glowing in the fading light of the upper atmosphere. I had the distinct impression it was getting larger and nearer and then with a faint foomp, it blinked out of existence. Turns out it was a missile launched from Vandenberg AFB as part of the interceptor missile defense program. But still, it got my heart pounding.

In any case, you may want to keep an eye to the heavens -- chances are actually pretty decent that you'll spot something bigger than dust streaking through the atmosphere.