[meteorite-list] No One Knows Why Ice Chunk Fell from Sky in Oakland

[Ron Baalke]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/11/BAGPJI74I11.DTL 

No one knows why ice fell from sky

Big chunk hit park, leaving in its wake 24-by-18-inch hole

Henry K. Lee
San Francisco Chronicle 
April 11, 2006

The mystery of the big chunk of ice that landed with a thud 
in an Oakland park will remain a mystery because apparently 
no one is investigating where it came from or why it fell 
from the sky.

The puzzler began about 10 a.m. Saturday, when the chunk 
slammed into the ground at Bushrod Park on Shattuck Avenue 
hard enough to send a spray of turf and ice several feet 
skyward. The impact left a hole 24 inches wide and 18 
inches deep.

No one was injured, but many residents witnessed the odd 
occurrence and summoned the police and fire departments.

The Oakland Fire Department's hazardous-materials team 
analyzed the projectile and concluded that it contained 
nothing more hazardous than water, fire Capt. Melinda 
Drayton said Monday. Fire officials have no idea where 
it came from, she said.

Neither does the Federal Aviation Administration, which 
investigates those instances where things fall from 
airplanes -- as in May, when parts of a FedEx plane 
rained down on Danville.

But this time around, the agency seemed absolutely, 
positively nonplussed.

"We don't know if it came from a plane. It's hard to 
prove," said FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer.