The absorption of a plane wave of sound by a sphere is computed. The calculations are based on the assumption that the complex ratio of sound pressure at a point on the sphere's surface to the normal component of particle velocity is a constant independent of the direction of incidence (“normal impedance assumption”). Absorption measurements were made on hair felt-covered spheres placed in a reverberation room, and were compared with the computed absorption by means of the reverberation room statistics appropriate for spheres. The theory and measurements both show that absorbent spheres can have absorption coefficients greater than unity. The discrepancies between theoretical and experimental coefficients seem to indicate that the normal impedance assumption is not valid for the hair felt used in the experiments.