and I'm just arm waving here, but it's just as good as hitting an alien craft.

At the speed of this aircraft, a falling object will be coming at a nearly horizontal angle, terminal velocity of a falling object verses jet speed. When you are driving a car in the rain, which way do the rain drops hit your car?

As for the second question, if read carefully, you'll note that the plane was climbing up from 26,000 feet, which means it had just left the airport, which means there was probably a plane a mile or few in front of it, on basically the same path. Also, the climbing angle lifted the cone of this craft well above horizontal.

Check the wiki page on blue ice, an you'll find references to blue ice damage to airplanes from ice falling off the same plane, due to a leak in the drainage system, usually on the climbing portion of the flight, as that is when the cabin is being pressurized, placing stress on the outlet valves of the sewage system.

Find the plane that took off before this one, and I'll bet a beer it had a leak in the drainage plug.

Cruising altitude is well above 26,000 feet. Long distance flights are 40K or more.

(minor post-post edits...damn typos...)