Unidentified Flying Object Nails School

The United States Navy does a serious amount of flying in the skies over the south-eastern California desert. Primarily, the flights are for training purposes. We here at the Education Wonks constantly hear the roar of jet engines overhead; some call it the sound of freedom, some call it Something Else. These training flights occur around-the-clock-seven-days-a-week. Yesterday, over in the nearby town of Brawley, something rather unusual happened, as reported by The Imperial Valley Press:

A chunk of aircraft from an airplane fell from the sky and crashed into the roof of Barbara Worth Junior High School here Wednesday afternoon. Class was not in session when the object fell and no one was injured. However, there were students milling about campus waiting for the after-school program to begin when the bizarre incident occurred."We were talking and heard a scream and there was a big pop," said Trianna Morales, 12, a seventh-grader at Barbara Worth. "It made a big pop like a firework was in there."

The unknown steel object was about 2" wide and weighed about a pound. The school took photographs of the "cylinder like object" for publication in the campus' newspaper.

Shortly thereafter, a member of the military soon appeared and took custody of the "object" without commenting on its identity.

The fate of the photographs is unknown.

This is the second time in recent memory that "unauthorized" objects have fallen from military aircraft on a public school. Back in November of 2004, we profiled the case of an F-16 fighter that strafed a New Jersey Middle School. We then gave a possible explanation as to what caused the incident.

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