FAA says ice ball may be airplane related

ROSCOE, Ill., July 20 (UPI) -- The Federal Aviation Administration has said a basketball-sized chunk of ice that crashed through the roof of a Roscoe, Ill., home may have come from a plane.

FAA investigators examined the ice, which had crashed Wednesday into the home of Rick and Mary Lindstedt, and took pictures of the hole it created, the Rockford (Ill.) Register-Star reported Thursday.

Although the ice was clear, the FAA said, and not the blue color of water from a plane's waste system, the ice might still have come from a plane.

"If it came from a plane, there could have been some sort of leak that froze while the plane was flying at high altitude," Elizabeth Isham Cory, a spokeswoman in the FAA's Chicago office, told the newspaper. "And then when it descended, the ice melted and fell off."

However, some FAA officials said the ice could have been a "megacryometeor," an ice ball that experts believe is formed as a result of global warming. The occurrence has been reported in Spain and Ohio, the Register-Star reported.