- Location
- Dallas, Texas
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/...is.1ad0542.html
Chunk of metal crashes through Oak Cliff house
10:05 PM CST on Wednesday, February 25, 2009
By STEVE THOMPSON / The Dallas Morning News
stevethompson@dallasnews.com
Thirteen-year-old Jovany Perez told his friends at school Wednesday that something from the sky fell through the roof of his house.
"But they didn't believe me," he said.
The source of the metal is unknown. It has two holes drilled through it, and appears to be from some man-made object.
They should have.
Dallas police say a 6-pound piece of metal crashed into his southeast Oak Cliff home Tuesday, tearing through the roof and second floor when no one was there.
Dallas firefighters determined that it was not radioactive or otherwise hazardous, police say. It looked like something from outer space, but just what it was, no one could say.
By Wednesday evening, Dallas police were leaning toward a more terrestrial explanation. An investigator visited a nearby tree-mulching business and saw that the object closely resembled a tooth from one of the large machines.
"He was pretty sure that's where it came from," Lt. David Jones said.
The piece has the shape of a brick with two holes, but its surface and edges are rounded and deformed as if from heat and friction. It left a baseball-size hole in the roof of the house in the 7800 block of Buford Drive.
"It went through the roof, then it went through my sister's bedroom, made a hole, went through the kitchen ceiling, and hit the refrigerator," Jovany said.
It put a large dent in the top of the refrigerator, then bounced into a basket on the floor. That's where his mother found it when she arrived home from work about 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jovany said.
After looking at a photo of the object Wednesday, one expert said it did look as if it were from space.
"This thing was exposed to a tremendous amount of heat," said Max Corneau, vice president of the Texas Astronomical Society of Dallas and a senior Army space operations officer.
It's not unusual for space debris to make it to Earth's surface, he said. "What is fairly uncommon is that pieces actually go through people's houses."
But sometimes such unidentified flying objects have turned out to have more down-to-earth origins.
Just last week, an 8-pound chunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a warehouse in Jersey City, N.J., sparked theories that the object was satellite debris.
But police soon determined that the rectangular piece of metal had flown off a large mulching machine at a nearby business about three football fields away, according to media reports.
Chunk of metal crashes through Oak Cliff house
10:05 PM CST on Wednesday, February 25, 2009
By STEVE THOMPSON / The Dallas Morning News
stevethompson@dallasnews.com
Thirteen-year-old Jovany Perez told his friends at school Wednesday that something from the sky fell through the roof of his house.
"But they didn't believe me," he said.
The source of the metal is unknown. It has two holes drilled through it, and appears to be from some man-made object.
They should have.
Dallas police say a 6-pound piece of metal crashed into his southeast Oak Cliff home Tuesday, tearing through the roof and second floor when no one was there.
Dallas firefighters determined that it was not radioactive or otherwise hazardous, police say. It looked like something from outer space, but just what it was, no one could say.
By Wednesday evening, Dallas police were leaning toward a more terrestrial explanation. An investigator visited a nearby tree-mulching business and saw that the object closely resembled a tooth from one of the large machines.
"He was pretty sure that's where it came from," Lt. David Jones said.
The piece has the shape of a brick with two holes, but its surface and edges are rounded and deformed as if from heat and friction. It left a baseball-size hole in the roof of the house in the 7800 block of Buford Drive.
"It went through the roof, then it went through my sister's bedroom, made a hole, went through the kitchen ceiling, and hit the refrigerator," Jovany said.
It put a large dent in the top of the refrigerator, then bounced into a basket on the floor. That's where his mother found it when she arrived home from work about 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jovany said.
After looking at a photo of the object Wednesday, one expert said it did look as if it were from space.
"This thing was exposed to a tremendous amount of heat," said Max Corneau, vice president of the Texas Astronomical Society of Dallas and a senior Army space operations officer.
It's not unusual for space debris to make it to Earth's surface, he said. "What is fairly uncommon is that pieces actually go through people's houses."
But sometimes such unidentified flying objects have turned out to have more down-to-earth origins.
Just last week, an 8-pound chunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a warehouse in Jersey City, N.J., sparked theories that the object was satellite debris.
But police soon determined that the rectangular piece of metal had flown off a large mulching machine at a nearby business about three football fields away, according to media reports.
