Did a mysterious backyard discovery in southern New Jersey have its origins in the vast realms of outer space?
That’s the buzz in a quiet neighborhood in Cape May County, where an 8-year-old boy playing with a metal detector outside his home found a small, black, rock-like object that resembles a meteorite fragment.
The discovery was made in the boy’s backyard in the Ocean View section of Dennis Township in November 2021, two days after a bright meteor zipped across the late-afternoon sky over New Jersey and five other states.
“The meteor was so large that many eyewitnesses saw it take over the daytime sky,” Chris Bakley, an astro-photographer and space expert from South Jersey said in a recent Facebook post. “NASA officials stated that meteorites could possibly be found around our area.”
While Bakley acknowledges he is not an expert on meteorites, he believes it’s quite feasible the fragment in the boy’s backyard may have originated from the Nov. 13 meteor, based on the timing and appearance of the rock.
“It does not seem to be a regular backyard rock,” he said, noting it has a partially melted look and there appear to be some soil fragments embedded in the oval-shaped slab.
As unusual as it is to find a meteor rock on the ground, the object that was discovered in Ocean View could, perhaps, be even more rare.
Bakley says this “rock” appears to have some characteristics of heat-resistant fragments that would be found in the inner core of a comet. If that turns out to be the case, Bakley said, that would be an extremely rare discovery — not only here in New Jersey, but anywhere on our planet.
David Klassen, a professor and astronomy coordinator at Rowan University, agrees it may be possible for comet fragments to make their way through our atmosphere and land on Earth, but it would be quite rare.
“Most meteorites come from old, shattered asteroids and not comets. But since since comets are regularly throwing off dust — the ice evaporates and pops the rocky stuff off it as it nears the sun — it could be possible,” Klassen said. “But most of that stuff would be ‘burned up’ as it entered our atmosphere.”
Playing in the yard
So how did this New Jersey mystery start?
A third-grade science buff named Cole Stanton was walking around the backyard at his parents’ house in Ocean View in mid-November and playing with a special gift he had received from his parents.
“I was outside using my metal detector to find stuff when I found it,” Cole told NJ Advance Media. When the detector scanned the ground over the rock-like object, “it went off.”
Cole and his parents, Rachael and Aaron Stanton, said the boy had to push aside some dirt and ordinary rocks to pull the rock-like object from the ground.
There was “a little impact around the rock,” Aaron Stanton recalled.
The local tree service worker described the object as mostly black, “with a goldish tint on the ridges.” Its shape is oval, measuring 2 1/2 inches long and about 1 inch wide.
Rachael Stanton, who works at a local bake shop, weighed the object and it registered at 18 grams — 10 grams lighter than a normal rock of similar size. She also placed a magnet on the object, and it didn’t stick.
Those two factors add to the mystery, according to Bakley, who learned about the boy’s discovery when his parents posted a photo on Facebook and several people tagged him to get his opinion on what the object might be.
Even though the object set off a metal detector, it didn’t have any magnetic pull, he noted.
And meteorites typically have a heavy weight, says the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Meteorites are usually quite heavy for their size, since they contain metallic iron and dense minerals,” the USGS notes in a fact sheet on meteorites. “Since most meteorites contain metallic iron, a magnet will often stick to them. For ‘stony’ meteorites, a magnet might not stick, but if you hang the magnet by a string, it will be attracted.”
Bakley says the light weight, strong structure and apparent lack of magnetic qualities in the object that was found by Cole would be consistent with a meteorite fragment that originated from a comet, not an asteroid. But experts would have to examine the material to know for sure.
After the fireball was seen in the sky, NASA’s Astromaterials Research & Exploration Science division (ARES) said experts had reported the fireball “might be a part of the northern Taurid meteor shower,” which was active at the time.
Meteors from that particular shower originated from a comet called Comet 2P/Encke.
“If this is true and meteorites can be recovered from this event, it will be the first time that meteorites are recovered from a comet, much less a known comet,” NASA noted in November.
At the time, NASA said there was a possibility that some meteorites could have landed on the Cape May peninsula, particularly in the area in and around Cape May Court House, based on “a pair of unusual radar signatures” that were detected on weather radar data at the same time the fireball was spotted.
Searching for answers
Cole’s parents recently examined the backyard “rock” under a microscope to get a better look at it, but they are hoping to find meteorite experts who could test it to help determine its origin. If that happens, however, the boy wants to be there with his prized possession.
“This is something that my son wants to keep, and if it is tested, he wants to be in the room around it,” Rachael Stanton said.
The parents said Cole has kept his special “rock” in a soft blue box similar to a box that typically holds jewelry, but the box recently broke, so they plan to buy another one. Although the soon-to-be fourth grader wasn’t thrilled at first with getting attention over his discovery, his mom said, “now he’s excited.”
And sometimes he goes into the backyard with his metal detector to search for more potential meteorites. So far, nothing out of the ordinary has set off the device.
But Cole is hoping for another discovery that may be out of this world.
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