Additional Coverage:
Houston, TX – Residents across the Houston area experienced a jarring “boom” on Saturday, leading one local woman to believe a celestial visitor may have made a rather dramatic entrance through her roof.
The Brenham Fire Department initially responded to reports of a possible explosion but found no conclusive evidence. However, Houston resident Sherrie James later contacted FOX 26, claiming a meteorite had indeed pierced her roof. She then sought assistance from the Ponderosa Fire Department.
Fire Captain Tyler Ellingham confirmed that his team discovered what they described as “an unusual rock.” Given the absence of nearby construction or trees, the fire department suspects the rock is a fragment of the meteor sighted over Houston, according to FOX 26.
This report was corroborated by NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office, which confirmed that a meteor traversed Texas at 4:45 p.m. on Saturday, as stated in an email from an agency spokesperson to the Houston Chronicle. The meteor traveled from west to east, just south of The Woodlands.
Over 100 eyewitnesses, spanning from northwest Houston to Austin, reported a bright flash in the sky, accompanied by a loud, thunderclap-like sound and a powerful streak of light. The American Meteor Society classified the event as a fireball, a term used for a meteor that explodes with a visible flash as bright as Venus.
This incident echoes a similar event earlier this month in Cleveland, Ohio, where a loud boom on March 17th rattled homes across a 30-mile radius. The National Weather Service in Cleveland confirmed the major boom was the result of a meteor, with incredible video footage showing it breaking up in the sky.
Astronomer Jay Reynolds commented on the Cleveland event, stating, “We get hit everyday by meteors. Sometimes if they get low enough, yeah they will do that, and since it’s cloudy out there would be no smoke trails or evidence of that.” While meteors, often appearing as bright “fireballs,” have passed over the Cleveland area multiple times in recent years, none are known to have directly struck the city.