NASA Confirms Object That Crashed Into Florida Home Was ‘Space Debris’
On Monday, NASA confirmed Florida resident Alejandro Otero’s suspicions that the “mystery object” that broke through the roof of his home last month was, in fact, a piece of “space debris” left over from the International Space Station.
The cylindrical “mystery object” was transported to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral earlier this month after crashing through the roof of Otero’s Naples home on March 8.
Following the examination and investigation of the incident, NASA issued a statement confirming that the object was a metal support that was being used to install outdated batteries for disposal from the International Space Station on a cargo pallet.
NASA officials disposed of those batteries by launching them into space in 2021 under the assumption that the load would eventually burn up completely upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
However, this component — which measured four inches in height and 1.5 in in width, and weighed 1.6 pounds — did not fully burn up in the atmosphere.
Speaking with local news station WINK, Otero explained that he had been on vacation when his son called to inform him about the incident. He arrived home early from his trip to assess the damage, finding that the “mystery object” had ripped through his ceiling and tore up the flooring.
“It was a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all,” the homeowner told reporters. “Something ripped through the house and then made a big hole on the floor and on the ceiling.”
“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage?” Otero asked. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
He noted in the interview that he had suspected that the object had come from the International Space Station after doing some research into it.
Otero even responded to a post from an astronomer on X, formerly known as Twitter, that was discussing another piece of space debris that had landed in the ocean — asking the man to put him in contact with NASA about the object that crashed into his house, as he had not received any response from the agency at the time.
The post read: “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.”
Otero responded, “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 [hit] my son. Can you please assist with getting NASA to connect with me? I’ve left messages and emails without a response.”
