Flying Piece of Metal a Puzzle?

[Doug]

BAYONNE, N.J. - A hunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a home had NASA and Federal Aviation Administration officials scratching their heads.

It didn't look "very space-y," said Henry Kline, a spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's obviously made for something ... But we wouldn't know what to do with it."

It didn't appear to be an airplane part either, the FAA said.

Finally, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said Wednesday, a colleague in his office solved the mystery: It was part of a commercial woodchipper. The same part from another woodchipper's grinder had caused similar confusion last year, he said.

How it got on a Bayonne roof was anyone guess, but Peters had a theory. The grinder piece moves very fast and, apparently, it can launch into the air if something goes wrong.

Read the rest here.

DOUG
Don't they know that flying saucers have woodchippers onboard as standard accessories?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Does give a very good example of how myths get started - and that we should spend more time worrying about "ordinary" things (as in planning for and preventing problems, not just squirrel-caging) than the extra-ordinary of whatever source.