[coppsilgold]

One more addition to the conspiracy theories:

    The frequency of fireballs in our planet’s skies seemed to grow in recent months. NASA and other meteor experts can’t agree on what explains it.

...

    In response to growing public interest, a NASA public affairs official said in a blog post at the end of March, “While it may seem like meteor reports and sightings have been more frequent recently, it is not out of the ordinary.” The post explained that from February to April, there is often a 10 to 30 percent increase in the number of extremely luminous meteors — and nobody is quite sure why.


    Mr. Hankey said that this 10 to 30 percent increase was already baked into the American Meteor Society tally, and that it doesn’t explain the apparent doubling of fireball sightings in the year’s first quarter.

<https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/science/march-fireballs-m...>

[lesostep]

Can you, please, also quote how this sightings are tallied? Is that an astronomical observation by same people or is that based on self-reporting citizens?

"People see more stuff in the sky" is a common sign for people getting more anxious about attacks from the sky. To my knowledge, first UFO reporting waves happened during cold war when people started to get paranoid about soviet spying.

[nephihaha]

The first true UFO wave was the phantom airship wave of the 1890s. But there were similar bouts before then.

[JetSpiegel]

They might be counting sightings over Israel, Iran, and GCC countries.

I have seen many social media videos of fireballs in the sky in the last few months.

[zavec]

Homestuck is finally happening?

[zimpenfish]

> The frequency of fireballs in our planet’s skies seemed to grow in recent months.

It feels reductive to point out that this has coincided with a massive increase in the number of small satellites with limited lifespans up there.

(And yes, you'd expect NASA and the AMS to have thought of that but I honestly wouldn't put it past them to be deliberately ignoring Starlink satellites given Musk's political power and petulance to people who cross him.)

[onion2k]

The scientists are being killed by space fireballs!? This is conspiracy bigger than I thought!