Homeowners Blasted Out of Bed By Massive High Speed Projectile

blasted

It wasn’t a cannon shot which blasted a California couple out of bed but it sure sounded like one and did the same damage. A massive chunk of ice plummeted from the sky and crashed through their roof at high velocity. “Nearly a month later,” Jon and Renae LeClair relate, “the source of the ice remains a mystery.

Ice Blasted through the roof

On August 8, around 10:30 p.m. Jon and Renae LeClair were “startled” by the “sonic boomcreated by a bowling ball sized chunk of ice as it blasted through their roof into the attic.

They’re really glad their son had recently headed off to college because it hit “just inches away from” where he would have been sleeping.

Renae’s first guess was “somebody’s breaking into the house” but Jon didn’t think so. To him “it was like a cannon shot.” As they investigated, they found “shattered glass scattered throughout, but no signs of strangers or thieves.” The impact force must have been enormous as the object blasted down.

The next thought was a “bear broke into the home.” They don’t call the neighborhood “Big Bear” for nothing. Their castle is “surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest.” They didn’t find one of those either.

By the time they reached the attic, they found the hole blasted in the roof, a good two feet across. They also discovered “a block of ice the size of a bowling ball” melting into a puddle on the floor. It may not have been shot from a cannon but it was effectively a cannon ball.

At first glance, Jon thought it was a meteorite but since the iron ones tend to melt on the way down, ice doesn’t stand a chance falling from space. That leaves some more mundane cause. While a few come to mind, none have been conclusively nailed down.

Blame the air traffic

The most obvious cause of the mystery is the overhead air traffic. The LeClair’s lean toward the explanation “the chunk descended from a passing plane after frozen moisture broke loose from the jets.

The home lies along well traveled air routes. The experts agree it’s a pretty good possibility that’s what blasted through the roof.

Just a week later, a chunk of ice estimated to weigh as much as 20 pounds smashed through a Massachusetts home.” It happens a lot more frequently than people imagine.

In 2015, a slab of ice the size of a basketball plummeted through a Modesto, California home, more than 350 miles north of the LeClair residence.” It blasted in that time, too. The Savath family “compared the noise to a bomb exploding.

Thanks to the miracle of the modern internet we can crunch some numbers. Assuming a 20 pound chunk of ice falling from a height of around 35,000 feet, where the airliners like to hang out, means that the ice that blasted through the roof at the LeClairs’ hit with around 700,000 foot pounds of force.

A quick conversion to horsepower means 1,290 horses. That’s like revving up a 1,200 Horsepower Dodge Demon and smashing it into the roof. Only this one was moving around 1,023 mph when it went WHAM. It’s a good thing junior was snug in a dorm because you wouldn’t want to be under that.

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