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Wood chipper apparently strikes again
By Associated Press
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A hunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a Bayonne, N.J. , home had NASA and Federal Aviation Administration officials scratching their heads.

It didn’t look “very space-y,” said Henry Kline, a spokesman for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “It’s obviously made for something ... But we wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

It didn’t appear to be an airplane part either, the FAA said.

Finally, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said Wednesday a colleague in his office solved the mystery: It was part of a commercial wood chipper. The same part from another wood chipper’s grinder had caused similar confusion last year, he said.

The mysterious object last year referred to by Peters was in New Jersey and not Bloomington.

Initial speculation in April focused on the possibility that an object that crashed through a Bloomington home may have been a meteorite. An Illinois State University geology professor determined that the metal chunk came from a wood grinder from Twin City Wood Recycling.

In the latest New Jersey incident, Peters had a theory on how the object got on a Bayonne roof. The grinder piece moves very fast and, apparently, it can launch into the air if something goes wrong.

The man who lives in the house was watching TV Tuesday when he heard a crash and saw a cloud of dust. In the next room, he found the hunk of gray metal, 3½ inches by 5 inches, with two hexagonal holes in it.

The part was returned to Bayonne police on Wednesday, Peters said.

“It belongs to somebody,” Police Director Mark Smith said.

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Reader comments on this story - 2 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

lulz wrote on Jul 19, 2007 2:51 PM:

" "It didn’t look “very space-y," - Those guys are always so technical when they talk. Gotta love it. :) "

Mr.Jose Can'u'c Piscopo wrote on Jul 19, 2007 5:55 AM:

" You from Jersey? You want a plutonium sandwich? "
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