Typical meteors and meteorites pose no danger of any kind to people. Meteors burn up before they reach Earth, so they do not hit anything on the surface; meteorites are so rare that the chances of their hitting anything important are almost zero.

Still, occasional incidents are known to happen. A falling meteorite killed a dog in Egypt in 1911; another struck the arm of—and rudely awakened—a sleeping woman in Alabama in 1954; and in 1992 a meteorite put a hole through a Chevy Malibu automobile. Once in a very rare while—every 100,000 years or so—a meteor or meteorite about 300 feet (100 meters) across will collide with Earth. Once in a very, very rare while—every 100 million years or so—a meteorite 3,000 feet (1,000) meters across will do so, and that is a cataclysmic event.