Posted on 05/18/2011 10:12:03 AM PDT by traumer
BERNARDS TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) – A Basking Ridge homeowner would really like to know why there’s a crater in her front yard.
“To me it looked like something blew out of the ground because the grass was folded back, the rocks and dirt were all spewn out into the cul-de-sac and across the driveway,” Sue, who asked not to be identified out of concern that the hole may draw unwanted onlookers and crowds, said.
Her son, Jeff, believes something fell from the heavens. “Something clearly came out of the sky and just hit it from an angle and then it all shot up the other way,” he said.
Officials and experts are also scratching their heads. For now, it appears the small crater that splayed debris across a 100-foot area wasn’t caused by a meteorite. Beyond that, it’s a mystery.
“It’s just really, really weird,” said Jerry Vinski, director of nearby Raritan Valley Community College’s planetarium, who conducted tests on the site. “We dug around and couldn’t find anything. We used metal detectors because all meteors have metal in them, and we couldn’t find anything, large or small.” Bernards Township Police Capt. Edward Byrnes said whatever hit the front yard left a crater about 18 inches deep and roughly the size of a coffee table.
A State Police bomb squad ruled out explosives, Byrnes said. According to Byrnes, no one in the neighborhood heard or saw anything at the time of the May 6 incident. The homeowner called police upon arriving home. “The weather was clear, there were no reports of lightning strikes; nobody reported seeing anything,” Byrnes said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in 23 years.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newyork.cbslocal.com ...
I keep TELLING those guys on the space station to be careful to not drop anything. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Some utility guy probably got stoned and dug up the wrong yard, then bolted.
Nice sharp cuts in teh sod, there. Squarish chunks of sod here and there.
Something from Uranus?
It looks like something my basset would do. That wouldn’t take him more than five minutes.
From the headline, I was expecting something bigger.
“We used metal detectors because all meteors have metal in them...”
Meteoroid = the object in space
Meteor = the object in the atmosphere
Meteorite = the object on the ground
Not all meteorites have metal in them.
“We’ve got a bug”
My take: Discharge line valve from an airplane toilet flying overhead leaked..glob of liquid froze...the ice blob hit the ground..then melted away...perfect crime
THAT is HILARIOUS. I had a dog that would go that. He would dig the dirt out of his own navel.
We had worm beds, and once he got into the barn . . . Suffice it to say that the worms were quite inconvenienced.
I suspect the 5 gal bucket but I doubt it is talking . . .
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