Mysterious metal cylinder crashes through Plymouth warehouse roof

A three-pound piece of metal was found lying on the floor of a Massachusetts warehouse on Thursday. What made this remarkable was the gaping hole discovered directly above it in the roof.

"We don't know when exactly it fell, but we found it at 11 o'clock (a.m.)," Andrew McWilliams, an employee of Michael's Wholesale Furniture Distributors in Plymouth, Mass., told Life's Little Mysteries. The chunk of metal appears about the same size and shape as a tall, skinny soda can, but the silvery cylinder has a tarnished look to it.

www.msnbc.msn.com...


Stumbled across this story online a little bit ago and found it pretty interesting,one of the things that immediately stuck out was the fact that the FAA is stating that the object in question is not from any known airplane

So far theories proposed are that it could be debris from space or a piece of from a piece of heavy machinery, possibly a wood chipper.

"We have no idea what it is. At this point, we can only speculate. No clue," said Plymouth police Capt. John Rogers. "This would have had to come through with some significant force or velocity to get through the warehouse roof and cause damage."

One possibility is that the metal chunk may have fallen from space. There are approximately 20,000 bits of man-made space junk in low-Earth orbit that are as big as or bigger than the chunk that crashed through the warehouse.

These usually burn up during re-entry when they fall into Earth's atmosphere, but sizable pieces occasionally make it to the ground. McWilliams said the FAA "confiscated" the piece of debris and is continuing to investigate its source.

Here is a new clip -




Picture of the object -



Point of entry -



So ATS is the mystery solved? is it simply a piece of machinery that has broken off near by? space junk?
what do you think really happened and what do you think the metal object actually is,if anything abnormal?

I have a problem with the angle of the point of entry being pretty much straight down & the velocity it would take to penetrate the roof like it did if it was merely a broken piece of stray machinery,sure it is possible but I don't know for sure.




Just came across this article,did a search on here and did not come up with anything,if it has already been posted I apologize in advance.

Cool story - good job it didn't land on anyone. Certainly don't want one of those ripping through my roof in the middle of the night. Hope they manage to work out what it is!

Posted the other day......

Why does it have to be from a plane?????

Someone in the other thread linked an article where part of a tree muching machine ended up being thrown hundreds of feet into the air. It went through someones roof...was hot (from the friction of muching trees).

Im sure there is a logical explanation, like the other story.

i like my explaination, on other thread... that the piece is from a damaged hydraulic machinery 'piston' that blew apart..

~this is new~
the machinery might be from the vast tunneling devices which are buildin underground cities all across the USA



i earlier said it may have been equipment at a quarry

Holy carp!!
That's where that landed.
I told billy bob not to play with the dern thang but you know how he gets around guns and explosives.
Who knows what it is, stabilizer bar, landing gear, Etc.

Could be from a tree grinder, but I tend to think it's part of a retaining pin, possibly one of the bucket pins on a backhoe. (They have several.) Those pins are subject to huge stresses and if they fail the broken piece can fly a long way. And even on pretty common-sized machinery such pins (when whole) can weigh several pounds. On the bigger machines, just one pin can easily be 20 to 30 pounds.

One of the clues is that part of the surface shows light corrosion, while rest is "scrubbed" as if it's been running within bushings but perhaps lacked adequate lubrication. I have a cousin who used to drive a Cat D9 dozer and he told me that making sure everything was properly lubed was a daily task. On these big machines, there are some load-bearing parts that must not rub bare metal on bare metal. If they do they can fail pdq.

Could a snapped pin send a chunk flying a few hundred feet in the air and maybe up to half a mile distant? Yes. You get several tons of force behind a thing like that and let it all go at once and you've got a nice little missile. And when they let go there's no time to "duck and cover". By the time you realize the thing's snapped it's either missed you or you're a hospital case -- if you're lucky.

However, if it's from a machinery failure, I can't see the owners of the machine coming round to that place and saying, "Sorry about your roof... Just send us the bill and we'll pay for it."

Mike

What i find peculiar is that freefall speed of such an object is not nearly enough to penetrate the roof, so something must have broken over the house and propelled it down. If an aircraft is ruled out i cannot think of what it could have been thats in the air and explodes down.

I'm not quite sure that is from a chipper, or even a stump grinder, but as my hubs is a tree climber/ tree remover, I will show him this tonight & get back to you on it...Although, I can tell you, he's been in the business for over 22 years & something like that happening, has never happened in his experience. Very interesting S&F

Well gee what could it possibly be?

It would be nice if posters could remember that this forum is not all about USA and have the courtesy to reference the country in the subject heading (unless obvious - ie New York). There is a Plymouth in UK for instance and maybe elsewhere too.

reply to post by starchild10


Yep I thought the same.

Americans need to be reminded that there is actually a world outside of the United States.

I'll probably get the usual reply of "well most of the people who use this site are from the US." etc etc

Originally posted by starchild10
It would be nice if posters could remember that this forum is not all about USA and have the courtesy to reference the country in the subject heading (unless obvious - ie New York). There is a Plymouth in UK for instance and maybe elsewhere too.

Personally, I though the word "Massachusetts" was a dead giveaway, but heck...I'm just another colonial. eh?

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

Personally, I though the word "Massachusetts" was a dead giveaway, but heck...I'm just another colonial. eh?

Yes, but their point is, it's not in the thread title.

I've seen some good ones on this site though. I've seen Oslo, Rome and Paris. Personally I straight away think of Norway, Italy and France, not some random cities or towns in the United States.

LOL
Looks like a slug from a rail gun....

Originally posted by Kram09
reply to post by starchild10

 

Yep I thought the same.

Americans need to be reminded that there is actually a world outside of the United States.

I'll probably get the usual reply of "well most of the people who use this site are from the US." etc etc

I keep hearing words like that--that there are other places outside the USA...

I am currently looking into this to determine the facts. So the theory is that there are other countries than the USA? Pics would be nice; perhaps some hard-to-dispute evidence. But, I don't know. Countries besides the USA? I don't think so....

Looks like the pin use to hold a backhoe bucket on. I don't know how I would become a projectile though. Somebody having fun launching projectiles with their catapult?

reply to post by starchild10


I took the title of the article that would be why but if you would of simply read the beginning of the Op you would of seen it clearly states Plymouth,Massachusetts.

this America vs. "insert country" is getting tedious and off-topic


No need for that.