Experts Brought In To Examine Mysterious Object
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Experts Brought In To Examine Mysterious Object
Police Tight-Lipped, Many Think It May Have Been Meteor
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(CBS/AP) FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, N.J. It's not a bird and it's not a plane.
But authorities on Thursday were still trying to figure out what exactly
crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home and embedded itself in a
wall.
The metallic, rock-like object that punched through the roof Tuesday
night is about the size of a golf ball and weighs as much as a can of
soup. Federal officials quickly determined that it didn't come from an
airplane.
In Freehold Township, where the house was struck, metals experts were at
the police station on Thursday evening to study the rock, said Thomas
Antus, the township administrator.
The owner of the house hit by the rock was notified that the rock was
his property, Antus said.

Police said they had completed their investigation, but Lt. Robert
Brightman said the results would not be made public. He declined to say
why.
Antus said he hasn't seen so much attention toward the affluent,
Monmouth County town in his 14 years in charge of local government.
"The fact that such worldwide attention was brought by a single event is
astounding," Antus said.

The rough-feeling object struck the single-family, two-story home, went
through the roof, 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. Magnets held
near the rock are attracted to it, he said.
Meanwhile, North American Aerospace Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Sean
Kelly said Thursday there was no known connection between the New Jersey
object and the remains of a Russian rocket that launched a French space
telescope last month. The rocket's remains appeared as a fiery stream of
meteors in the sky early Thursday.

At least one expert, examining pictures online, was skeptical whether
the New Jersey object was really a meteorite.
Most meteorites get a black coating and a smooth surface while passing
through the Earth's atmosphere, while the Freehold rock has a rough
surface and a silvery sparkle, said Allan H. Treiman, senior staff
scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.
"That sure doesn't look like what I've seen," said Treiman, who's
examined meteorites since the 1980s.
Approximately 20 to 50 rock-like objects fall to the Earth's surface
every day, 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."
With much of the planet covered by water and uninhabited land, it's rare
for a rock to hit a house, said Harry McSween, professor of planetary
geoscience at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Given past stories of meteorite hits that gained notoriety, McSween said
the Freehold family would likely be able to fetch "big bucks" for the
object if it is a meteorite.
"If they were smart, they would cut out the section of the wall with the
hole in it, sell it too," McSween said.

Officials have declined to identify the owners of the home or say
exactly where it is located. Brightman has only said that a couple and
their adult son live in the house in a township housing development.