Photo: Hopewell Township Police Department
A New Jersey family was shocked when they returned home and found a hole in the roof of their ranch-style home. Suzy Kop told WPSG that she initially thought somebody threw a rock through a window in her dad's bedroom.
As she stepped around the damage, she found a black rock in the corner and went to pick it up.
"I did touch the thing because it thought it was a random rock, I don't know, and it was warm," Kop told the news station.
That's when she realized it wasn't a random rock. Instead, it was most likely a meteorite.
"We are thinking it's a meteorite, came through here, hit the floor here because that's completely damaged, it ricocheted up to this part of the ceiling and then finally rested on the floor there," Kop said.
Luckily, nobody was hurt.
Kop said they called the non-emergency line for the police and tried to explain what happened. Officers with the Hopewell Township Police Department came to the house, took the black rock, which was about 4"x6", and then scanned the family for radiation exposure.
"They were afraid that, you know because it fell from the sky, was it radioactive? Could we have a type of residue on us? So they scanned us, and everything came back clear," Kop said.
In a press release, the department said the meteorite likely came from the Eta Aquariids meteor shower, which occurs every year between April 19 and May 28.