Published: Wednesday, 10th February, 2010 5:00pm

Owen is Cavan's rock-et man!

by brian O'Loughlin

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Owen Brady had his friends at Crubany NS puzzled last Thursday when he rocked the boat with a curious looking black stone, and told them it was the meteorite that supposedly landed in Cavan the day before...

The 11-year-old from Gallon near Slieve Glah was having a bit of a laugh following the headlines that dominated the news on Wednesday: "I told them it was a piece of meteorite," said Owen. "Some of them believed me... I showed it to the teacher, Mr. Greenaway, and he thought it was a piece of artificial coal that I got out of the garage." So what's the truth Owen? "I found it on the mountain in Crumlin... one day Daddy was going up to the well to check it and I went up with him, and I just found it lying on the ground, a couple of metres away from the well. I showed it to Daddy, put it in my pocket, brought it down and put it in the cupboard."

So it's not a meteorite then? We don't know, as Owen refused to confirm or deny whether his was a space rock. He'd forgotten about it anyway, and "was just looking for something and I found it" last week.

"I brought it into school. I told them I found it up the mountain. Some of the teachers though it was unusual but I just said nothing!" On Friday, when the fuss had died down a bit, Owen told his friends the truth of the rock, but he has no particular plans for it, despite its new-found fame.

According to Astronomy Ireland the fireball, which likely derived from leftover debris that floats around in space, landed somewhere in Donegal. Its experts are hoping the public will submit what they call Fireball Reports so they can refine the exact location of the landing (log your report at astronomy.ie).

Anglo-Celt deputy editor Tom Carron saw the fireball from the Cootehill/Newbliss road, about three miles east of Newbliss.

'It was a large rocket like object that came diagonally out of a fog filled sky, said Tom.

'It was like an airplane on fire; it continued to lose height as it swept across our vision. We thought it was a military type rocket which had gone astray or had been fired accidentally - or that it was military jet aircraft which was on fire - it was of that size. As the object went down also within our view I was waiting for some form of explosion but we didn't hear anything.

The object had a tapered fireball coming out behind it - I can only say it was a fireball, my daughter Jacinta says that it had a greenish colour or greenish tinge.'