to be struggling to explain this (bit woo!)

[Elphame]

I'd just left the dining hall yesterday when there was this huge crash from behind me.

I shot back in to find the hanging lampshade from the landing pendant light shattered on the floor, shards of glass all over the room, up the stairs and all over the landing (there is a wrought iron open spiral staircase from the room to the landing and the light hangs directly over it)

The bulb holder is still intact - the ring that screws tight to hold the shade in place is still screwed tight as it was when I fitted the shade months ago. There is no way it could have just fallen off. Everything is just as it should be

Even the bulb itself was still in place - in fact still alight although all glass was missing and the live parts all exposed. The glass must have shattered though before the it hit the stairs or all the glass would have been downstairs which it wasn't.

Mighty puzzled here - anyone have a rational explanation?

Happened here a few times with sitting room light where glass from the bulb has exploded. Think it is due to heat. Terrifying though, glass everywhere.

Our shower screen shattered in the middle of the night! Sounded like a gun going off! The fitter said an invisible flaw can suddenly make it 'go' through regular use. In your case, regular heating/cooling as others have said

I think either the plastic reducer weakened over time and could no longer hold the weight or the bulb was too high wattage and the heat shattered it. Easily done, some of them can only take up to 40w.

Glass has shattered and you thought woo?!

Sorry... not laughing at you. Well not much.

Here you go, just so as you can laugh at me back...
A pane of glass in our old conservatory smashed suddenly when my oldest child was a toddler. I swept up, then vacuumed, then mopped... then inched over the floor in bare feet so any remaining bits of glass jagged me and not my PFB.

If we're sharing this sort of story...

My first night in my new flat, I had just gone to bed, when I heard a gunshot. From within the flat. Although it's a second storey flat in a very secure mansion block, a barrister I knew had recently had been burgled whilst she was in bed, so I (figuratively) shat myself. Then there was a second shot.

I sat there for ages, but nothing else happened. Eventually I decided to go and check it out..... nothing. There was not one single thing that could have caused that noise.

The following night, friends came over, and I proudly showed them the drinks fridge. Opened it to see that 2 glass bottles of san Pellegrino had shattered because the fridge was too cold..............

We had a huge kitchen light shade fall from the ceiling in our previous (rented) home. It seemed eerie that it fell just as someone was leaving the kitchen, just missing her. But when I thought about it, I decided that maybe it had been the vibrations of her footsteps on the tiled floor that had caused it. She was really spooked though, poor thing.

Hold on... surely if the glass had broken due to heat or whatever, the metal parts of the lampshade would still be attached to the light fitting?