Meteorites may have landed in Suffolk

SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - A woman in Suffolk found several rocks shaped like meteorites in her backyard on Sunday. She said several of her neighbors found meteorites in their yards too.

Faye Sears and her family were sleeping in their home off Smith Street when their smoke alarm went off around 5:30 a.m. "We checked everything. We checked the refrigerator, we checked all the sockets, the microwaves, stove, our washer and dryer. Nothing was hot, none of the sockets were hot," said Sears.

After Sears checked the house and found nothing on fire, she went back to bed. Later that morning, her sons were working in the backyard when they discovered several rocks in their yard that were still hot. Sears called the fire department, but the firefighters were unable to identify the rocks.

"He said to him, it looked like the ones we pulled up on the internet, so he said to call Channel 10," said Sears.

WAVY.com did some research about meteorites. The University of New Mexico Institute of Meteoritics displays pictures and lists characteristics of common meteorites on their website. None of the pictures looked exactly like the objects found in Sears' yard, but the website pointed out that "most meteorites are cold when they hit the Earth's surface, and do not start fires on the ground."

The material looked like coal, but the shiny pieces the family picked up did not burn when touched with a lighter. Another argument against the rocks being coal was that coal doesn't fall from the sky. Sears and her family may never know what these objects are that hit their yard, but they said they'll keep looking to the skies for answers.