We investigate an obvious consequence of the small-comet hypothesis. We find that the 30-ton cloud of water-ice particles formed by a small comet would survive long enough to be an unmistakably bright object. The visual magnitude of such clouds would be between that of a bright star and the full Moon. A whole-Earth small-comet flux of 20/min implies the sudden appearance of at least two bright patches of light every five minutes. The two-hour periods after sunset and before sunrise ought to produce the most spectacular sightings-intermittent punctuations of bright rapidly-moving points of light. Because such events are not reported, we conclude that this class of object does not exist in detectable numbers. ¿ 1997 American Geophysical Union