At about 7:40 this evening I was out on my patio and saw two meteorites very close together. I saw them for about five seconds before they disappeared. They were very low in the east and travelled from north to south - I live in Reno, NV. When I told my daughter, she said she had heard we would be seeing meteorites this summer coming close to Earth. Has anyone else heard about this - or did anyone else see these two tonight?

There are many swarms of space dust that the earth plows through regularly every year. Some give a better meteorite show than others, depending on whether the moon is shining brightly that night, if there is some haziness, etc. One big swarm in the summer comes around the middle of August and maybe there will be no moon those nights which would make it seem better than usual.
Of course, a passing space pebble can fall at any time, so you never know if you will be lucky enough to see a good meteorite.
Did you make a wish on yours, Phyllis? I always do!

I did make a wish, Claybird.

I found it so fascinating to see these two meteorites because it is only maybe the second or third time in my life I have seen any. The last time was in the Pacific Northwest in the summer, probably August, when the nights were short and there was still daylight at 10PM and sometimes we could see the Northern Lights - anyway, we sat outside one night, very late and watched a meteor shower and it was awesome!

I think the next meteor shower is the Lyrids, which occurs around April 21st and 22nd. A really good site is spaceweather.com, which is a good first stop if you're wondering about something you've seen, such as meteors and comets.

I don't think there's a shower at the moment, but then the Earth gets hit by over 20 tons of cosmic rock every day. I'll probably do an article on meteoroids/meteors/meteorites for next week. :-) It's certaintly interesting stuff.