Suspicious debris crashed into home

CARLSBAD, N.M. (KRQE) - For the past couple of weeks there was a lot of suspense about where pieces of a dead satellite would land.

And since it plunged to earth over the weekend, there have been reports of debris from Hawaii to Texas.

A Carlsbad man and his neighbors are wondering if some of that debris landed in his yard.

Anthony Granger woke up to what he thought was a bomb going off at his neighbor's house Friday morning.

"Nothing was broken, no windows were broken, nothing looked out of place, so then I started scanning the ground because I heard a rolling.  That's when I found the bearing-looking piece," recalled Granger.

The foreign object he found on the ground in front of the house has neighbors talking.

Others found similar objects, they said all had one thing in common -- heat.

"Have you ever touched the inside of an engine after it was running, stuck your hand into an engine of a car? Well it was a lot hotter than that," Granger explained.

He found a second piece near the street, covered in black soot, similar to the first one.

"They were talking all this hype about the satellite falling, okay so maybe it's a piece of the satellite," said Granger.

Most of the bus-size satellite burned upon re-entry, but NASA scientists believe more than one thousand pounds of debris survived and plunged into the Pacific.

But, if estimates were off, fiery pieces could have hit North America.

The owner of the house was able to find two gaping holes in the roof from something he suspects fell out of the sky.

"Who's to say what it really is, you know, if it came out of the atmosphere, it had to have come from the sky somewhere for it to dent the roof and put a hole in it," Granger said.

Carlsbad police have the first two objects Granger found.

The third one was found burnt into the plywood in the roof.

Talk of the satellite debris possibly changing directions has Granger wondering, "Well I had no idea that it wasn't even supposed to hit the northern United States, and that's when I realized that maybe it was a piece of the satellite."

"I don't know, I touched it so I'm not real sure what to think," he said.

For now, neighbors are waiting for answers.

The Carlsbad police department said it did file a report with a description of the objects to NASA, but were told it could take up to two weeks to hear back.

One thing working against Granger's theory -- the satellite re-entered the atmosphere Friday night at 10:15 mountain time.

The debris rained down into the Pacific early Saturday morning.