Strange rock falls from sky and damages car (From The Northern Echo)

Strange rock falls from sky and damages car

4:07pm Tuesday 7th September 2010 in

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A SHOCKED motorist escaped serious injury when a strange white stone-like object smashed onto the roof of his car causing a large dent.

Derek Morrow, 71, of Great Fencote, near to Northallerton, was startled by a loud bang as he parked his car outside his North Yorkshire home.

The retired chief technician with the RAF, of Chapel Crescent, found an inch deep dent in the roof of his Ford C-Max.

The roof of the car was coated with a white dust and about ten feet away was a strange white rock which was two inches wide by an inch deep.

He said: "I was just returning with the newspapers at 10.05am on Sunday, September 5, when I heard a loud bang and I thought something had fallen off the car.

"I saw some white stuff on the car roof and I thought it may be ice from an aircraft and then I found the rock.

"We’re on the flight path for RAF Leeming and airliners but I couldn’t see any vapour trails or an aircraft.

"There was no-one about at the time. My theory is that it must be space debris and it’s made quite a dent. If it had hit me it would’ve done serious damage so I’m quite lucky."

The object is chalk-like in colour and has a dusty surface but it is quite hard and without any other markings.

Mr Morrow and his wife Margaret, 72, are keen to discover what the strange item is.

He said: "I have wracked my brains over what it could be and in all of my years working on aircraft I have not seen anything like this."

A RAF Leeming spokesman said no flights had left on Sunday morning from the airfield.

He said: "It’s impossible for a lump of rock to fall from an aircraft with the checks that they carry out on planes."

A Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said it was more likely an astronomical event and probably did not come from an aircraft.

A British Astronomical Association spokesman said: "I’m not sure what it is but I don’t think it’s astronomical.

"Meteorites are always black and pitted as they have come through the atmosphere to reach Earth.

"I had a similar report of a rock landing in a garden which turned out to have been thrown up by a tractor."