MODESTO, Calif., Sept. 10 (UPI) — Residents of a California neighborhood are stumped as to the origins of a giant piece of ice that fell from the sky and crashed through the roof of a garage.
Modesto resident Lisa Lawrence said she was sitting outside her home about 11 a.m. Wednesday when she spotted an object falling through the sky.
“It looked like a garbage bag flying in the air,” Lawrence told KCRA-TV. “I looked up at it, and it was a big old ball of ice, bigger than a basketball and I watched it go down and it went off like a bomb.”
“It sounded so loud so it must have been traveling pretty fast,” she said.
Lawrence went down the street to the home of her friend, Amnuay Savath, who was outside with her family surveying the damage to their garage.
The ice punched a hole in the roof of the garage and damaged the rear bumper of the family’s Honda Accord.
Savath told the Modesto Bee the impact sounded like someone had crashed a car through the family’s garage door.
“One guy said maybe it came from a jet plane … from a toilet or something, but it wasn’t yellow or anything. Yeah, I’d like to know where it came from,” Lawrence said.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor recommended the homeowner save pieces of the ice for analysis and contact the FAA’s Fresno Flight Standards District Office.
Meteorologist Mark Finan said the ice ball was unlikely to be the result of hail or other weather phenomenon.
