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.
UPDATE:
The mysterious object that shot through the roof of a two-story home earlier this week was identified by scientists as a meteorite, police said Friday. But the fate of the extraterrestrial mass, likely formed with the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago, has emerged as another unknown in the case of the second known meteorite to fall in New Jersey.
Its new owners, a married couple with a son, expressed some interest in putting the meteorite on a small-scale tour so local schoolchildren could see it, said Jeremy Delaney, a Rutgers University meteoriticist who was among four scientists who identified the object for police and later met the family. Eventually the family will have to decide whether to keep the meteorite, give it to an academic institution such as a museum or sell it to a collector. What's for sure is that the object will be in high demand. Rarely on landings do meteorites come in contact with people. So when they do, the space artifacts are connected with a story that generates interest all around.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., both of which have extensive meteorite collections, likely will have interest, Delaney said. Depending on the rarity of a given meteorite, researchers sometimes spend several years looking at the same chunk that fell from space. "By looking at these objects, we have the ability to explore our deep, deep past," Delaney said. "Meteorites have given scientists clues about life on Mars and the rest of our solar system." New Jersey's only other known meteorite, weighing an ounce, fell in Deal in 1829.
The precise research value of New Jersey's newest meteorite won't be known unless it ends up in the hands of scientists who would study its composition. But Delaney said the Freehold meteorite might be of some interest to researchers because it is rich in metals, a sign that it came from the deep interior of an asteroid. "We all want to know where it's from and you won't get that until you do some analysis," said Peter Elliott, a Colts Neck metallurgist who also helped identify the meteorite. Its magnetic properties, color, texture and high density convinced scientists within a few minutes of inspecting it that it was a meteorite.
When the meteorite began to shoot through the Earth's atmosphere Tuesday afternoon, it likely was the size of a football, but then it quickly lost mass as its metals burned and melted on entry, Delaney said.
by www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk
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.
UPDATE:
The mysterious object that shot through the roof of a two-story home earlier this week was identified by scientists as a meteorite, police said Friday. But the fate of the extraterrestrial mass, likely formed with the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago, has emerged as another unknown in the case of the second known meteorite to fall in New Jersey.
Its new owners, a married couple with a son, expressed some interest in putting the meteorite on a small-scale tour so local schoolchildren could see it, said Jeremy Delaney, a Rutgers University meteoriticist who was among four scientists who identified the object for police and later met the family. Eventually the family will have to decide whether to keep the meteorite, give it to an academic institution such as a museum or sell it to a collector. What's for sure is that the object will be in high demand. Rarely on landings do meteorites come in contact with people. So when they do, the space artifacts are connected with a story that generates interest all around.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., both of which have extensive meteorite collections, likely will have interest, Delaney said. Depending on the rarity of a given meteorite, researchers sometimes spend several years looking at the same chunk that fell from space. "By looking at these objects, we have the ability to explore our deep, deep past," Delaney said. "Meteorites have given scientists clues about life on Mars and the rest of our solar system." New Jersey's only other known meteorite, weighing an ounce, fell in Deal in 1829.
The precise research value of New Jersey's newest meteorite won't be known unless it ends up in the hands of scientists who would study its composition. But Delaney said the Freehold meteorite might be of some interest to researchers because it is rich in metals, a sign that it came from the deep interior of an asteroid. "We all want to know where it's from and you won't get that until you do some analysis," said Peter Elliott, a Colts Neck metallurgist who also helped identify the meteorite. Its magnetic properties, color, texture and high density convinced scientists within a few minutes of inspecting it that it was a meteorite.
When the meteorite began to shoot through the Earth's atmosphere Tuesday afternoon, it likely was the size of a football, but then it quickly lost mass as its metals burned and melted on entry, Delaney said.
by www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk
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