“A penny dropped from a skyscraper could kill someone.”

• Naive projectile physics (ignoring air resistance) gives a large impact speed: from ~380 m (Empire State Building observation deck) a penny would hit at ~86 m/s (~190 mph), which intuitively sounds lethal and is the basis of the urban legend.
• Falling objects from tall buildings genuinely do kill people — construction debris, bolts, tools and glass panels dropped from height have caused pedestrian fatalities, so the general category of 'small object falls from skyscraper, person dies' is not absurd.
• A penny has a thin, relatively sharp edge; if it fell edge-on it would have a much smaller drag coefficient and higher terminal velocity than when tumbling flat, raising impact energy above the usual quoted figure.
• A strike to a vulnerable target such as an unprotected eye could plausibly cause serious injury even at modest speed, so 'harmless in all circumstances' is also an overstatement.
• Strong updrafts along skyscraper faces can accelerate light objects beyond still-air terminal velocity, adding some uncertainty to the low-energy estimates.

• A U.S. penny is light (2.5 g, ~1.9 mm thick) with a high drag-to-mass ratio; it tumbles and flutters rather than falling point-first, reaching terminal velocity of roughly 11 m/s (~25 mph) within a few hundred feet — far below free-fall speed.
• At ~11 m/s the kinetic energy is only about 0.15 joules, roughly the energy of a hard finger flick. Lethal penetrating injuries to the skull generally require energies orders of magnitude higher (handgun bullets carry hundreds of joules).
• University of Virginia physicist Louis Bloomfield dropped pennies from a balloon/helicopter over test subjects; the coins stung but did not break skin or cause injury, confirming the terminal-velocity analysis.
• MythBusters (2003) built a rig to fire pennies at terminal velocity and higher into ballistics gel and a human skull analog, and had a host struck by a penny; the coin failed to penetrate skin or bone and the myth was declared busted.
• The Empire State Building and most skyscrapers have setbacks, ledges and strong turbulent updrafts; objects dropped from observation decks typically do not fall cleanly to the sidewalk at all.
• No documented case exists of a person being killed by a penny dropped from a building, despite the legend circulating for the better part of a century.

92/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.

Snopesfactcheck · 88 · Scientific Americannews · 88 · Louis Bloomfield, University of Virginia (How Everything Works)edu · 85 · MythBusters (Discovery Channel), 'Penny Drop' segment, Season 1 (2003)other · 65 · U.S. Mint (coin mass/dimension specifications)gov · 97

• Falling objects from height are a real safety hazard: OSHA treats 'struck-by' and falling-object incidents as a major construction danger, so the general intuition that objects dropped from high places can kill is valid for sufficiently heavy, dense, or sharp objects.
• A penny dropped from great height could plausibly hurt someone, especially if it struck a sensitive area such as an eye; popular-science discussions note it may sting or cause minor injury rather than be harmless in every sense.
• The word 'could' leaves room for extremely unusual circumstances, but I found no credible evidence that an ordinary U.S. penny falling freely from a skyscraper onto a person's head has killed or is realistically expected to kill.

• Air resistance prevents a penny from accelerating indefinitely. Scientific American explains that a tumbling penny reaches terminal velocity rather than continuing to gain speed all the way down, leaving it with far too little kinetic energy to penetrate a skull or kill a pedestrian.
• Snopes rates the classic claim about a penny dropped from the Empire State Building killing someone as false, explaining that the penny's low mass, flat shape, and air resistance make lethal impact implausible.
• The physics strongly disfavors lethality: a U.S. penny has a mass of about 2.5 grams, and even at terminal speeds discussed in popular-science analyses its kinetic energy is tiny compared with bullets, large tools, bricks, or other falling objects known to be deadly.
• No credible documented case was found of a penny dropped from a skyscraper killing a person; the claim appears to be an urban legend derived from a real but much broader truth that heavier falling objects can kill.

88/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.

Scientific Americannews · 90 · Snopesfactcheck · 86 · Occupational Safety and Health Administrationgov · 90

• If air resistance did not exist (in a perfect vacuum), a penny dropped from a 1,250-foot skyscraper like the Empire State Building would accelerate to nearly 200 mph, theoretically giving it enough kinetic energy to cause serious injury.
• Heavier, more aerodynamic objects (like tools, bolts, or rolls of coins) dropped from skyscrapers have indeed caused fatal injuries, which likely contributed to the intuitive believability of this myth.

• Because a US penny is flat and lightweight (about 2.5 grams), it acts somewhat like a falling leaf and experiences significant air resistance (drag).
• A falling penny reaches its terminal velocity after dropping only about 50 feet. Because it tends to tumble and flutter, its maximum falling speed maxes out between 25 and 50 mph.
• At a terminal velocity of 25 to 50 mph, a 2.5-gram object lacks the kinetic energy required to penetrate human skin or fracture a skull. It would merely feel like a mild sting or a flick on the head.
• The television show MythBusters tested this exact claim in 2003 (Season 1, Episode 4). They fired a penny from a modified rifle at 65 mph (exceeding terminal velocity) into a ballistics gel head and found it did not penetrate or cause lethal damage.
• Physicist Louis Bloomfield of the University of Virginia conducted calculations and real-world experiments via helium balloons, concluding that falling pennies bounce off without causing harm.

99/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.

Scientific Americanjournal · 95

• In a vacuum with no air resistance, a penny dropped from a skyscraper could reach very high speeds (calculations suggest hundreds of km/h), and any small, dense object striking the skull at such speeds could in principle cause serious or fatal injury; physicists note that in a sufficiently long vacuum chamber a coin could be lethal.[8]
• If instead of an actual penny you consider similar small projectiles that are heavier, sharper, or more aerodynamic (e.g., ballpoint pens, bolts, or other debris), experiments and analyses indicate that these can reach higher terminal velocities and cause severe injury, showing that under altered conditions the general intuition—small object from great height can be dangerous—is not completely wrong.[7]
• MythBusters-style tests and derivative writeups report that a penny fired horizontally at or above realistic terminal velocity was able to penetrate a skin-simulating gel layer, implying that under some circumstances it can break the skin and cause injury, even if not fatal.[1][6][10][13]

• Multiple independent analyses and popular-science explanations conclude that a **penny dropped from a skyscraper cannot kill someone**, primarily because it is too light (≈2.5 g) and experiences strong air resistance that limits its terminal velocity; at terminal velocity it may sting but is not lethal.[2][3][7][8][9][11][12]
• Detailed physics explanations emphasize that a penny’s flat, disc-like shape causes it to **flutter and tumble**, behaving more like a falling leaf than a streamlined projectile, which greatly reduces its speed and impact energy.[2][3][6][7][8]
• MythBusters-style experiments using ballistic gel and skull surrogates found that even at or above terminal velocity, pennies cannot penetrate bone or cause catastrophic head injury; the myth was explicitly labeled **“busted”**.[1][6][10][11][13][15]
• Fact-style and university blog discussions explicitly state that there are **no documented cases** of anyone being killed by a penny dropped from the Empire State Building or similar skyscrapers, despite the myth’s popularity; they classify “death by coin” as an urban legend.[4][5][10][13]
• Physics-based estimates of terminal velocity for coins (for example, a UK 2p coin) show values on the order of tens of km/h, far below what would be required to produce lethal blunt-force trauma to the head.[8][9]
• Articles comparing pennies to bullets note that pennies have much less mass and cannot retain a stable, pointed trajectory; even when launched at high speed in controlled tests they only cause minor superficial damage, not the deep penetration associated with lethal projectiles.[6][11][15]

95/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.

MythBusters Wiki (summary of Discovery Channel tests)other · 75 · HowStuffWorksnews · 80 · HowStuffWorksnews · 80 · Penn State student science blogedu · 70 · The Daily Campusnews · 65 · Penn State student science blogedu · 70 · Ripley’s Believe It or Not (science-focused explainer)news · 70 · The Guardiannews · 85 · Nerdbotnews · 60 · Penn State student science blogedu · 70 · Business Insidernews · 80 · Rankerother · 55

• In a vacuum a penny falling from typical skyscraper height (~300–400 m) would reach ~80–90 m/s; people analogize this to a bullet or falling tool and note that other falling objects (ice, wrenches) have caused fatalities.
• A penny striking edge-on or hitting a vulnerable site such as an eye could in principle concentrate force enough to cause injury that, combined with secondary events, might theoretically contribute to death.

• Air drag on a tumbling penny produces a low terminal velocity (commonly estimated 10–25 m/s / 25–55 mph). Resulting kinetic energy is only ~0.1–3 J—comparable to a small hailstone or pebble—far below levels needed to fracture a skull or cause lethal trauma.
• Controlled tests (including television experiments firing pennies at estimated terminal speed into ballistic gel, pig carcasses, and human stand-ins) produced at most a sting or superficial mark, not penetration or life-threatening injury.
• No verified medical or news records exist of a death or even serious injury caused by a falling U.S. penny despite decades of urban legends and millions of people near tall buildings.

82/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.

Snopesfactcheck · 80 · Live Sciencenews · 75