FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — It came from the sky.
But from how far up the small, silver-gray, rocklike item with a metallic sheen came before crashing through the roof of a Colts Pride development home Tuesday afternoon is open to speculation.
The Federal Aviation Administration, after viewing the lumpy but smooth object, which measures about 2 1/4 inches by 1 1/4 inches and weighs about 13 ounces, believes it did not come from a conventional aircraft, township police Lt. Robert Brightman said.
"Their investigation leads them to believe it's not an airplane part," Brightman said.
So speculation of what did fall into the single-family house in the development off Route 537 between the Colts Neck and Freehold Borough boundaries turned out of this world.
"It could be a meteor," said Harry Conover, Monmouth County's emergency management director. "It could have been something floating around in space. We've had satellites fall to earth. What do they call it — space junk?"
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 this week. "These are usually rocky or a mixture of rock and metal."
Brightman would not comment on whether space experts have been called into the investigation.
***
About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, a family member heard an unusual noise, Brightman said. About five hours later, her adult son who also lives in the house, found debris in a second-floor bathroom, Brightman said. The son then found the object embedded in a wall, having bounced off the tile floor, Brightman said.
The son contacted police about 9 a.m. Wednesday, Brightman said.
The hole in the shingled roof was "not much more than the diameter of the object," Brightman said.
The county Board of Health found the object not to be radioactive, Conover said.
Is this intersteller payback for demoting Pluto to a minor-planet?
Now to me, this is scary. The house that was hit is only a few miles from my house. Also, to add to the mystery, at 4:30 am this morning, my dog got up and started acting weird. He ended up having an accident in the house, which he hasn't done for quite some time. When I went to clean it up, I noticed a county car searching around the neighborhood for something. Coincidence? OF COURSE!!!
However, couple this meteor(ite) with this story, and things get strange:
CHICAGO - Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airline employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O'Hare Airport last fall. The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn't have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, according to a report in yesterday's Chicago Tribune.
The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged a United supervisor had called the control tower, asking if anyone had spotted a spinning, disc-shaped object. But controllers hadn't, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.
"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," she said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low [cloud] ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things."
The FAA is not investigating, Cory said. United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said company officials don't recall discussing any such Nov. 7 incident.
At least one O'Hare controller, union official Craig Burzych, was amused. "To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," he said.
So aliens visited Chicago, couldn't land and then started throwing space junk into New Jersey. Thanks Chicago!!!
UPDATE: This morning over Denver, a news helicopter cought footage of a meteor entering the sky and breaking up. The footage is incredible and can be seen here. CBS, News 4 in Denver is reporting:
(CBS4) DENVER Brilliant streaks of light raced across the sky over Denver Thursday morning as either a meteor shower or space junk entered the Earth's atmosphere.
Copter4 was able to captured the debris on tape as it flew over Denver.
The objects appeared to fall from north to south over the western part of the metro area.
The event was most likely a meteor shower, according to Chris Peterson, an astronomer and research associate with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Peterson said some people reported hearing sonic booms. The streak was first seen over Wyoming.
There have been no reports of injury or impacts on the ground.
Several CBS4 viewers called the newsroom to report seeing the light show.
People can log on to www.cloudbait.com to report sightings of the space debris to scientists who will investigate further and create official reports.
Evidently, meteor shows this time of year is not uncommon.
Hattip: Hoke.
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