HOUSTON — NASA confirmed an apparent meteor weighed about a ton before it ultimately broke apart in the Houston area.
ABC Houston affiliate KTRK viewers sent video of the fireball when they saw it Saturday afternoon.
Overnight, NASA said the meteor became visible 49 miles above Stagecoach in southwest Montgomery County.
Scientists said it then broke apart near Cypress Station.
That’s where one woman told KTRK she had an up-close encounter with a piece of it.
“‘What was that? What is that!’ Because it was so loud! It was like a boom!,” Sherrie James recounted.
The loud bang spooked the James family at their home on Saturday afternoon. They told KTRK that when they went to check where the noise was coming from, they were stunned to find that a strange rock had come through their roof.
“So, I come out here and look, there’s a hole in the ceiling, big dent in the floor, another little piece in the ceiling, and a big rock on the floor, and it just scared me to death,” James said. “I said, ‘Everybody, back out, get out of the room.’ I said, ‘I don’t know what this is, but this might be a meteor.’ I said, ‘I don’t know?’ First thing I did was call the fire department.”
James told KTRK she wondered if it was a meteorite and called the fire department. James says when firefighters arrived, they said it might have fallen from a plane.
She said she was not convinced.
“The weight of it is very, very heavy, and when the fireman looked, he said, ‘This is not a normal rock,’” James said. “He said the look of it and weight alone was just different.”
James said to her surprise, the firemen came back to her home 20 minutes later to take photos of the item and told her there were reports of a meteor exploding above north west Houston, and the rock in her home may be a fragment of it.
James plans to call NASA to see if someone can authenticate the piece that came flying through her roof, and yes, she plans to keep it.
She also told KTRK that since it’s a once-in-a-lifetime situation, she’s also getting herself a lottery ticket.
James said she recently had a new roof installed, so her next step will be to call to have it repaired.
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