“There Was a Hole in the Ceiling”: Meteorite Smashes into Texas Home Amid Recent Rise in Space Object Reentries

A Texas woman says she believes a meteorite crashed through the roof of her home on Saturday, following a loud boom reported by residents near Houston.

The space object reentry, which was later confirmed by NASA, occurred on March 21 at approximately 4:40 p.m. local time.

“Many eyewitnesses in the state of Texas have filed reports on the American Meteor Society website of a bright fireball,” a NASA statement read. “The meteor was also detected by the Geostationary Lightning Mappers on the GOES satellites.”

Officials said the object became visible as it reached an altitude of about 49 miles above Stagecoach, which lies outside Houston to the northwest.

Before breaking apart approximately 29 miles above Bammel, Texas, the object reached speeds of 35,000 miles per hour, causing a loud boom reported by many in the region as the object streaked through the skies toward the southeast.

“The disintegration of the asteroidal fragment—which weighed about a ton with a diameter of 3 feet—unleashed an energy of 26 tons of TNT,” NASA’s statement read, “creating a pressure wave that propagated to the ground and causing the booms heard by some in the area.”

NASA officials also said that weather radar data showed evidence of “meteorites falling to the ground between Willowbrook and Northgate Crossing.”

One of those meteorite fragments may have struck the home of Sherrie James, a resident of the Spring area outside of Houston, who said that she found an unusual rock fragment after a loud noise led her and her family to discover a hole punctured in the ceiling.

“My grandson went to check and said there was a hole in the ceiling,” James told local news outlet KHOU11. “I saw the rock, and I thought, ‘That looks like a meteor.’”

Local authorities said they initially suspected the object had fallen from an aircraft. However, with confirmation of a meteor that exploded above the area and NASA’s advisory that portions could fall to Earth, they quickly connected the incident on Saturday to the object that damaged James’s home.

The alarming incident occurred just days after similar events unfolded in Ohio, as a six-ton meteor blazed through the skies at speeds NASA estimates were at least 45,000 miles per hour.

Many residents in northern Ohio and surrounding states also reported hearing a loud “mystery boom” at the time of the meteor reentry.

One resident who spoke with The Debrief compared the sound associated with the object seen over Ohio to a nuclear blast.

See Also

Oldest Alphabet Discovered in Ancient Syrian Tomb Redefines History of Writing

Robert Lunsford, writing in an update posted on the website of the American Meteor Society, said that a new meteor shower was recently identified, which may help account for the recent rise in space object reentries.

“Between March 18-22, 2025, a new meteor shower from the constellation of Puppis was discovered by cameras of the Global Meteor Network,” Lunsford wrote. “It is tentatively called M2025-F1.

Lunsford said that rates remained low, but that “activity could have been noticed by someone viewing in this general direction during these nights.”

“If a repeat performance occurs this year, it will most likely occur during the period March 19-23,” Lunsford said.

It is uncommon for meteorites to hit homes, though it has happened recently. Last June, a 4.5-billion-year-old chondrite meteorite tore through the roof of a home in McDonough, Georgia.

In one famous documented incident, an Alabama woman named Ann Hodges was injured when a meteorite crashed through her roof, striking her on the waist.

Fortunately, no residents reported any injuries following Saturday’s incident near Houston, Texas.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.