FREEHOLD
TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) -- Authorities were trying to identify a mysterious
metallic object that crashed through the roof of a house in eastern New Jersey.
Nobody was injured
when the golf-ball sized object, weighing nearly as much as a can of soup,
struck the home and embedded itself in a wall Tuesday night [image].
Federal
officials sent to the scene said it was not from an aircraft.
The
rough-surfaced 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 has enlisted.
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 was a meteorite.
Police
received a call Wednesday morning that the metal object had punched a hole in
the roof of the single-family, two-story home, damaged tiles on a bathroom
floor, and then bounced, sticking into a wall.
The object
was heavier than a usual metal object of its 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 earlier.
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."
In the
neighborhood later in the day, residents chatted with each other in the streets
about the fallen object, but none said they knew which house had been hit.
Robert
Nalven, 55, said nothing this exciting had happened in the six years he's lived
in the affluent development. "I'm happy it didn't hit my house," he
said.
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