[meteorite-list] What Put 2 Holes in Roof in Indiana?

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Sep 1 10:53:46 2006
Message-ID: <200609011453.HAA07819_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060901/NEWS01/609010459/1006/NEWS01

What put 2 holes in roof?

Though no fragments were found, one theory is that home was hit by a
meteorite

By James A. Gillaspy
IndyStar.com (Indiana)
September 1, 2006

CARMEL, Ind. -- There's a scientist in Bloomington who plans to travel
here the day Mick and Mary Zakrajsek fix the two tennis ball-sized holes
in their roof.

"The physical evidence points to a possible meteorite fall," said
research scientist Nelson R. Shaffer of the Indiana Geological Survey.
"But no meteorite has been recovered to date."

Shaffer, the author of "Indiana Meteorites -- Close Encounters from
Outer Space," hopes to confirm his suspicions with an inspection of the
damage caused by the unidentified falling object that penetrated the
Zakrajseks' Foster Estates home last month.

"In the history of humanity, there is a handful of times when meteorites
fell and hit a building of any sort," Shaffer said. "But it does happen."
Firefighters responding to reports of an explosion and smoke at 3198
Hazel Foster Drive, near 146th Street and U.S. 31, think it happened
there on Aug. 12.

They're no experts on rocks from space, but the firefighters have no
better explanation for the holes in the wall and roof of the Zakrajseks'
two-story home in a fashionable neighborhood.

"Basically, we were clueless at the time as to what it could have been,"
said Carmel Fire Lt. Alan Young, whose crew found no fire on arrival and
finally began to wonder if the origin of the damage was not only foreign
to them but also not of this Earth.

Young said some of them knew that Saturday was one of two days when a
particular meteor shower was expected to be most active. But a meteorite?
"I don't know what meteorite rubble looks like, so I don't know what I'd
be looking for in the first place," Young said.

To find someone who did know, Mary Zakrajsek, 46, made the call to
Bloomington and left a message about their suspicions.
"He called me within five minutes," she said of Shaffer. "And he was
here in an hour."

After an initial examination and more analyses back in Bloomington,
Shaffer has been unable to distinguish between possible meteorite
fragments and roofing particles.

He's hoping tests on housing materials to be removed upon repair will be
more helpful.

"The disintegration is problematic," Shaffer said of the firefighters'
theory that the puff of rooftop smoke seen by a neighbor was the
meteorite disintegrating as it traveled through roof decking and plywood
siding behind a bedroom wall.

He would have expected the rock or its fragments to remain, he explained.
Still, there is strong evidence.

"A number of people reported hearing sonic booms. This implies an object
going very fast and not something that just fell off an airplane or was
thrown off," Shaffer said.

He also points to the magnetic properties of the tiny particles he's
collected, the spherical shape of the entry holes and the perceived
smoke that could have been a dust trail.

"My plan is to come up when the restoration people come and cut out the
damaged wall and look behind the wall," he said.

Neighbors who heard the boom and felt it rattle their windows and homes
are convinced the community has experienced a visitor from space.

"It was a huge explosion," recalled Sandy Fugate, who was walking her
dog when the object hit about 10:49 a.m. "We both jumped out of our skin.
Mick Zakrajsek, 48, a financial manager, heard the explosion while out
walking in the neighborhood. His wife likened the sound to a "huge
hammer" that pounded the roof and sent her 21-year-old daughter rushing
first upstairs and then back down to evacuate the family.

"People were coming from all over, because everybody had heard it," said
Jessica Zakrajsek.
Received on Fri 01 Sep 2006 10:53:43 AM PDT