A metallic, oblong object tore through the roof of a house in Freehold Township on Tuesday, mystifying the family living there and perplexing authorities, who could not immediately say where it came from.

Scientists were eager to examine the golden, rocklike lump, which measures about 21/2 inches by 1 inch and weighs 13 ounces - about the same as a soup can.

Federal aviation officials said the rough-feeling object wasn't from a plane, and police said it wasn't radioactive. "When you put a magnet up to it, it sticks," said Lt. Bob Brightman of the Freehold Township Police - a clue experts said could indicate it's a meteorite.

Brightman declined to identify the residents who found the object, saying only that they are an older couple that lives in the two-story house with their son.

The mother told cops she heard "an unusual sound" about 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, police said.

Her son found the object that night in an upstairs bathroom, where it damaged some tiles before embedding itself in the wall. The family called the cops yesterday.

The object's metallic glint "helps to make the case" that it's an iron meteorite that broke away from an asteroid belt and traveled for thousands of years to Earth, said Denton Ebel, curator of the meteorite collection at the American Museum of Natural History.

But he noted that its gold color "does not look like a meteor," which is normally gray.

"The most useful test would be to scratch it. It should be very hard, like stainless steel," Ebel said.

If the object is a meteorite, its falling to the ground likely would have caused a sonic boom, said Don Brownlee, a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington.

"But [the sonic boom] may arrive later than the actual impact," Brownlee said.

Geologists were intrigued by the object and said its composition must be examined to determine whether it was extraterrestrial or manmade.

Meteors are usually named for the location where they're found and can fetch tens of thousands of dollars from collectors.

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