[meteorite-list] Falling Ice Lands in New Jersey

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue May 23 19:11:43 2006
Message-ID: <200605231618.JAA02232_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/atlantic/story/6373083p-6229253c.html

Falling ice lands in Brigantine
By ELAINE ROSE
Press of Atlantic City
May 21, 2006

BRIGANTINE -- No, it wasn't a snowstorm in May, and not even hail,
when a Shipmaster Drive resident saw a block of ice fall from the
sky and land on his lawn Saturday evening, police said.

The giant ice cube, measuring about 2 feet around, fell from the
sky at about 7:34 p.m. and made a foot-deep crater in the resident's
lawn, Lt. Raymond Reganato said. No one was injured.

The resident called police, who surmised that the ice chunk fell
from the holding tank of an airplane, Reganato said.

"They usually drop it over the ocean, but I guess they missed,"
Reganato said.

Police called the Federal Aviation Administration in an attempt to
identify the culprit aircraft, but there were too many flights in
the area to make a determination, police said.

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http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6377709p-6233782c.html

Couple seeks to crack Brigantine ice mystery
By MICHAEL PRITCHARD
Press of Atlantic City
May 23, 2006

BRIGANTINE - It was a pretty typical Saturday evening for Dan and Jean
Ciechanowski as they worked the barbecue and chatted with neighbors this
past weekend.

Then it happened.

Dan Ciechanowski heard a noise that he described as the sound a missile
makes and saw something moving across the sky at a 45-degree angle.

It smashed into a vacant lot next to his property with a crash that
shook the foundation of his house.

That crash was pretty close to where Jean Ciechanowski was grilling.
Though there is a fence between her property and the vacant yard, she
too heard the missile-like sound and felt the impact.

In the end, the object - a large chunk of ice - had landed just a few
feet away.

"First I heard the noise of it coming down," she said. "Then there's
this crash and it shook the ground all around me. It was a pretty scary
thing to go through."

In fact, the Ciechanowskis described the impact as surreal. What they
found afterward was a one-foot-deep crater in the adjacent yard with a
hunk of ice two feet around sitting in the middle.

The ice fell at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday. When investigated by city
police, it was assumed that the ice had fallen from a plane. Police
called the Federal Aviation Administration to see if any planes in the
area had inadvertently dropped the ice from one of their holding tanks.
Or it could be a form of "blue ice," a euphemism used in the airline
industry for ice that falls from leaking airplane lavatories.

There were too many planes in the area to find a culprit, police said,
but Ciechanowski isn't so sure that the ice came from a plane.

"That was my first thought," he said. "We are on an approach for
Atlantic City International Airport. But my neighbor and I were out
talking when it happened. We looked around and didn't see a single plane
in the area."

Ciechanowski did some quick Internet research and found some other
problems with a blue ice theory. The ice in question was clear, did not
have a foul odor and seemed to have some minerals in it.

"I'm not saying what it is," Ciechanowski said. "But it doesn't fit what
I was reading in the Internet. It made me think it could be something
else, like a type of meteor."

A spokesman for the FAA said that despite the lack of color and odor,
the ice still could have come from a plane. The FAA intends to
investigate the incident.

When they get to the site, they'll be able to see the ice first-hand.
Ciechanowski kept a piece in the freezer. And he is handling it with
care in case the blue ice theory holds up.

"It's in a freezer we don't use too much and it's in plastic, he said.

For the Ciechanowskis, the mystery ice will provide for some interesting
conversations this summer, but they are aware it could have been a lot
worse.

"If this had hit something like our house it would have smashed right
through it," Dan Ciechanowski said. "If it hit somebody it would be
terrible. We're very lucky that nobody got hurt by this thing. I'm still
a little paranoid about planes flying overhead right now."
Received on Tue 23 May 2006 12:18:04 PM PDT