Origin of Fallen “Space” Debris Disputed

The object discovered in a Plymouth, Mass. Warehouse (Credits: CBS Boston).

Despite speculation that a mysterious cylindrical object discovered in a Plymouth, Massachusetts warehouse on December 1st was a piece of fallen space debris, new information provided by a Belton, Texas funeral home owner suggests the 2kg object may instead be of terrestrial origin.

The object, which was discovered underneath a gaping hole in the warehouse roof, was first believed to have fallen from a passing overhead aircraft. When FAA investigators who visited the warehouse ruled out that possibility, there was speculation that the charred, metallic object had fallen from space. On December 2nd, Captain John Rogers from the Plymouth Police Department had said of the object that “We have no idea what it is. At this point we can only speculate. […] This would have had to come through [the roof] with some significant force or velocity to get through the warehouse roof and cause damage.”

However, Danny Dossman of Belton, Texas contacted a local news station upon seeing pictures of the Plymouth object, claiming that a similar object, ejected from a woodchipper, had impacted his funeral home 6 months ago. “As soon as I saw the piece of metal, it looked so similar to the piece of metal we had found, I knew it had to be related” said Dossman.

The Plymouth object (left) compared to the Belton object (right) (Credits: CBS Boston).

Plymouth police have requested that WBZ-TV, the Plymouth local news station contacted by Dossman, send the pictures of the Belton object Dossman provided to assist in the investigation of the objects. If the Belton and Plymouth photographs are similar, it would suggest that the Plymouth object more likely came from grinding equipment in a local industrial park than from space.

If the Plymouth object had in fact fallen from space, and the nation responsible for placing the object in orbit could somehow be determined, the UN Outer Space Treaty and Liability Convention would oblige the launching nation to compensate the Plymouth business for the damage caused by the falling object. However, the massive quantity of debris in low-earth orbit would make determining the national origin of the Plymouth object virtually impossible.

Historically, there are no recorded deaths resulting from falling space debris. However, there have been rare cases of spacefaring nations having to provide compensation for damages resulting from falling space objects, such as the crash of Cosmos 954 in the Canadian arctic in 1978.

The video below shows a WBZ-TV news report from December 1st on the initial investigation of the Plymouth object. 
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKOxTKIiSxg]