(NAPLES, Fla.) — An alleged space object has appeared to crash through the roof of a family home in Naples, Florida, leaving several questions and a damaged residence in its wake.
Last month, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, took to X, to share that an “equipment pallet” from space had reentered Earth’s atmosphere, hypothesizing it would likely have reached Fort Myers, Florida.
“The EP-9 equipment pallet reentered at 1929 UTC over the Gulf of Mexico between Cancun and Cuba. This was with the previous prediction window but a little to the northeast of the ‘most likely’ part of the path. A couple minutes later reentry and it would have reached Ft Myers,” McDowell wrote on March 8.
Alejandro Otero, a homeowner in Naples, Florida – about 40 miles south of Fort Myers – responded to McDowell on X and shared several photos of damage to his home, as well as a photo of the alleged space debris.
“Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples,” Otero wrote on March 15.
Otero said the apparent space object “tore through the roof” and went through two floors of his home, and that the object “almost hit my son.”
Hello. Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples.
Tore through the roof and went thru 2 floors. Almost his my son.
Can you please assist with getting NASA to connect with me? I’ve left messages and emails without a response. pic.twitter.com/Yi29f3EwyV
— Alejandro Otero (@Alejandro0tero) March 15, 2024
Otero previously claimed he had reached out to NASA for a response but did not hear back. In a statement Tuesday, NASA said the agency “collected an item in cooperation with the homeowner, and will analyze the object at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as possible to determine its origin,” adding, “More information will be available once the analysis is complete.”
In an interview with WINK TV in Ft. Myers, Otero said he was on vacation when the incident took place but that his son was home and called him about the damage, saying, “Something ripped through the house and then made a big hole on the floor and on the ceiling.”
“When we heard that, we were like, impossible, and then immediately I thought a meteorite,” Otero told WINK.
Otero said the object weighs nearly two pounds and appears to be “cylindrical-shaped.”
“It used to have a cylindrical shape, and you can tell by the shape of the top that it traveled in this direction through the atmosphere. Whatever you burned, created in this burn and melted the metal over in this direction,” Otero told WINK.
Upon arrival to his home, Otero said he was “shaking” and that he’s “super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief,” Otero told WINK. “What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage?” he said, adding, “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
ABC News has reached out to Otero for a comment.
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