Jan 04 2007

The Sky Is Falling!

It seems like all sorts of things have been falling from the skies in the past few days.

Metal object crashes through N.J. home

By CHRIS NEWMARKER, Associated Press

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A metal, rock-like object about the size of a golf ball and weighing nearly as much as a can of soup crashed through the roof of a Monmouth County home, and authorities on Wednesday were trying to figure out what it was.Nobody was injured when the oblong object, weighing more than 13 ounces, crashed into the home and embedded itself in a wall Tuesday night. Federal officials sent to the scene said it was not from an aircraft.The rough-feeling object, with a metallic glint, was displayed Wednesday by police.

“There’s some great interest in what we have here,” said Lt. Robert Brightman. “It’s rather unusual. I haven’t seen anything like it in my career.”He said he hoped to have the object identified within 72 hours, but declined to name the other agencies whose help he said he had enlisted. Police received a call Wednesday morning that the metal object had punched a hole in the roof of a single-family, two-story home, damaged tiles on a bathroom floor below and then bounced, sticking into a wall.

The object was heavier than a usual metal object of that size, said Brightman, who added that no radioactivity was detected.

Brightman would not disclose the address of the house or the names of the people who lived there, citing the family’s desire to not talk to the media. He would only say< that the couple and their adult son live in a township housing development.

Brightman said one man who lives at the home found the object at about 9 p.m. Tuesday after returning from work and hearing from his mother that something had crashed through the roof a few hours before.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which sent investigators to the town, did not know where the object came from, said spokeswoman Arlene Murray.

“It’s definitely not an aircraft part,” she said. “I can’t speak beyond that as to what it might be.”

Approximately 20 to 50 rock-like objects fall every day over the entire planet, said Carlton Pryor, a professor of astronomy at Rutgers University.

“It’s not all that uncommon to have rocks rain down from heaven,” said Pryor, who had not seen the object that struck the Monmouth County home. “These are usually rocky or a mixture of rock and metal.”

Pryor said laboratory tests would have to be conducted to determine if the object were a meteorite.

A spectacular rain of space junk over the Rockies:

Beginning at 6:15 Thursday morning 9NEWS was flooded with calls from viewers, many of whom said, â€œI have just seen the most incredible thing ever in my life.â€ That incredible thing, according to NORAD, was a SL-4 rocket body that re-entered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming. NORAD added that it is possible pieces of the object broke off during re-entry over states neighboring Colorado. At this time reports of damage have not been received and the debris is not believed to be hazardous.Viewers from all over the region called 9NEWS, some as far away as Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming, to report their sightings.

And finally, A video of of the Russian rocket booster entering the atmosphere over Colorado.

Thanks to Kenn Thomas.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Wake Up Down There, Breaking News. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.
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