No storm, but mysterious chunks of ice appear

BETHLEHEM, N.H. - There's a mystery in Bethlehem, N.H.

A ball of ice came crashing onto the ground at the Adair Country Inn.

“It was eerie, that whoosh,” Brad Chapman, innkeeper at Adair Country Inn, told New Hampshire’s Union Leader. “And then we heard a thump and we looked around and saw this ball of ice, 30, 40 feet away, tops.”

The chunk of ice came crashing down, shattering into pieces.

Chapman said he checked to see if someone had been throwing snowballs, but found nothing. So he gathered the pieces that didn’t break, put them in a bowl and put them in the freezer to try and figure out what it was that fell.

Several meteorologists who examined pictures of the ice over the weekend said the chunk was likely from a passing plane, the Union Leader reported.

James Koermer, professor of meteorology at Plymouth State University, told the newspaper a check of radar maps Friday "were not showing anything in the area," nor was there any significant weather or cloud cover.

"The chunks also do not have any of the characteristics of natural hail and there were no storms in the area to produce hail," he told the Union Leader. "I also checked for aircraft icing reports and there was some light rime icing reported in the Northeast, but nothing significant was mentioned. I would think that a pilot with an ice buildup this large would have noticed and reported it, but I can't totally rule out that possibility."

State climatologist Mary Stampone told the Union Leader she doubts the ice was meteorological.

"It definitely was not hail, and I cannot think of anything else that weather-wise that would produce large chunks of ice to fall from the sky, especially something of that size and consistency," she said.

The chunks of ice are now at the inn's freezer if anyone who wants to take a look.

To read more of this story, visit the UnionLeader.com .