So many new comets were discovered last year that astronomers named 2013 the 'Year of the Comet'. Less popularlized was the noticeable increase in fireball meteors observed in the Earth's atmosphere. Another year has passed and fireballs are still raining down like never before, with their rate apparently increasing exponentially.

SOTT.net has been cataloguing fireball events since 2002, and a couple of other websites have sprung up since then, but in general the lack of record-keeping and media coverage of this phenomenon is shocking, especially given how extraordinary the phenomenon is (or rather, was - apparently it's 'normal' now!) and whatever it may portend for civilization, sometime in the future, if not immediately.

One relatively new resource is the American Meteor Society's 'Fireball Logs', a database where eyewitnesses have been submitting reports of fireball events in the U.S. The AMS does subsequent checks to verify events with the All-Sky Fireball Camera Network set up by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) and other observation networks. Their stats are remarkable, yet they do fit with what we've noticed at SOTT.net in recent years: the numbers just keep going up and up, and at an ever increasing rate!

Using the AMS data, which begins in 2005, I've created the following tables to give readers a visual for what's going on. Check this out:

Reports are pouring in from across the United States of multiple meteor fireballs streaking across the sky yesterday evening, January 12th, 2014, from approximately 5pm through 7pm, Eastern Standard Time. Over 170 observation reports were submitted to the American Meteor Society website, in addition to dozens of reports submitted on the Lunar Meteorite Hunters website, from eyewitnesses in northeastern and western states.

Streaks appearing on NOAA's online radar service apparently indicate that the fireballs came in from a northeast-southwest direction:

Report your meteor sightings please. Please help get the word about this event so that we might recover security camera video or cell phone captures; spread the word about this website via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, GLP, SOTT and your favorite forums; contact your local news outlets; thank you!

If you have video or photo captures please email me.

Initial Meteor Sighting Reports

12JAN2014 NorMya North Haven Connecticut 19:00:00 5 secs W-E facing North green orange white moon trail of sparks long tail of white sparks which flowed into rings of green orange into a dark ball and dissappeared

12JAN2014 Jenn New York, NY 18:45:00 4 seconds Driving easy, it was going southwest Orange Same as venus Yes, broke into 4 pieces after 3 seconds of viewing Amazing experience ... And it feel it was bigger than I expected one to be. It looked as big as a street light going pretty fast

12JAN2014 James Keene N.H 18:30 pm/eastern 3 Hrs East,continuous,West,Facing the east Large brightly glowing sporadically,traveling slowly to the west, Would shine Brighter then the stars Possible tailing You tell me what it is

12JAN2014 Suzanna Barrett Durham ct USA 17:50:00 30 sec? Left to right and down , we were facing east Orange Size and brightness of 7-8 stars together, and orange Yes Have seen tons of meteor showre before, nothing like this before

12JAN2014 Geoff Mount Vernon, NY, USA 1745H EST approx. 3-5 secs Start NNE-E Observer facing east Steady, light blue object appeared on a descending slope. No sound detected (observed from inside car with radio playing), observed an aircraft in the same line of sight heading in a northerly direction brightness comparable to Sirius No disintegration observed My heading was approx.050 degrees. Object relative bearing was approx. 300 degrees at approx. 30-degree elevation

It looks like a movie, but it's not

This footage is compiled from multiple locations in Chelyabinsk, Russia when it was hit by the shockwave from an enormous overhead meteor explosion on February 15th 2013. The blast caught up with people in their offices, schools, workshops... one moment they were going about their normal day, the next...

The trend of increasing meteor fireball events continues into 2014,with 4 separate fireball events - including one daytime fireball -caught on camera by Japan's equivalent to NASA's All-Sky Camera Network.


Source: Sonotaco.jp

Fireball meteor over Japan on January 2nd 2014, from 2 different cameras.

Area residents are wondering what's been causing loud booming sounds that have been heard throughout the region.

"We had two calls from the 1700 block of Westover Avenue this morning around 7:45 to 7:50," Petersburg Police spokeswoman Esther Hyatt said. She added that officers cleared up from the area when nothing was detected that would have caused the sound.

She added that others at the Petersburg Bureau of Police said that they heard the same noise this morning in Colonial Heights and that some had heard the sound last week and thought perhaps "it was military-related." But, officials at Fort Lee say it isn't their doing.

"We're not the source of the booms," said Stephen Baker, Fort Lee Public Affairs Officer. "We do sometimes do training at the range on post which sometimes involves the use of small explosives or simulators but nothing to the magnitude of what's been heard."

At the time of the Emergency Management Agency of Utah (UEMA) conference on Jan 9, 2014, Physicians for Civil Defense issued the following statement:

All Americans, starting with first responders and emergency managers, need to know this basic life-saving principle: "Drop and cover if you see a sudden very bright light."

Such a light will be followed by a deadly shock wave within seconds. Those who drop and cover will probably survive. Those who do not are likely to be killed or suffer severe injury.

During the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor explosion, a fourth-grade teacher in Chelyabinsk, Yulia Karbysheva, saved 44 children from potentially life-threatening window glass cuts by ordering them to hide under their desks when she saw the flash. Ms. Karbysheva, who remained standing, was seriously lacerated when the explosion's blast wave arrived and windows shattered. A tendon in her arm was severed, but not one of her students suffered a cut.

"Large meteor strikes are sufficiently probable that both the U.S. and Russia are working on ways to divert them. In 1908 a meteor strike flattened 800 square miles of Siberian forest," stated president Jane M. Orient, M.D.

CBS 6 News has received hundreds of tips since our story aired about mysterious booms being heard across Central Virginia. Some said the noises were so intense they rattled their homes.

Police and firefighters in Colonial Heights were called out to three different parts of the city Sunday after receiving calls about mysterious sounds.

"It's a loud, loud boom," Clint Lanier, who lives in Chesterfield County, told CBS 6 senior reporter Wayne Covil. "It' ain't no shotgun and it ain't no kind of gun. It's like an explosion."

Sgt. Rob Ruxer with Colonial Heights police said dispatchers received at least three calls just before 5:30 p.m. Sunday from citizens in separate areas of the city about a loud noise.

"There was a large boom. I thought it was thunder," Kelsey Barnes of Colonial Heights said. "It kind of shook the house a little bit, but I have no idea what it was."

Residents in Moore and southwest Oklahoma City took to Facebook after hearing a loud rumble and roar early Monday morning.

Some thought it was an earthquake while others had their own theories, like UFOs and aliens.

The sound Chris Martinez hears often in his Moore neighborhood is an unforgettable ringing.

Martinez said, "It's a loud sound then it completely stops."

Austin Holland, with the Oklahoma Geological Survey, said,"We looked at our seismic records and there's nothing that would indicate that this was associated with ground motion."

After ruling out an earthquake, seismologists said the sound could have traveled from somewhere else.

Experts said if it's a quick shaking, it's an earthquake.

If it's a large rumbling, it could be a big plane.

However, residents in the area have their own theory.