A Golden, BC resident was jarred awake when a meteorite crashed through her roof and onto her pillow.

Earlier this month a meteorite fell from space, crashed through the roof of Ruth Hamilton’s house in Golden, British Columbia and landed in her bedroom directly on the pillow beside her head. The event occurred at 11:30pm on October 3 and thankfully Hamilton wasn’t injured.

She awoke with the sound of her dog barking and “the next thing was just a huge explosion and debris all over my face,” Hamilton recalled in an interview with CBC. “”I jumped out of bed and turned on the lights. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called 911.”

It was while on the call with the operator that she noticed a black rock, about the size of a large adult fist, lying on her pillow. At first she surmised it was debris from a construction site on the TransCanada Highway nearby but after speaking with the RCMP officers who were dispatched to her house, she learned there hadn’t been any blasting or an explosion that night. “But the workers had seen a meteorite, or a falling star, explode and there was a couple of booms.… Then we knew that it was a meteorite that had crashed through my roof,” Hamilton said to the CBC.

According to Peter Brown, a professor of physics and astronomy at Western University in London, Ontario, the chance of a meteorite landing on someone’s pillow is “one in about 100 billion” but after seeing photos of the rock, he confirmed it was from space. “Everything about the story was consistent with a meteorite fall, and the fact that this bright fireball had occurred basically right at the same time made it a pretty overwhelming case.” He and his team believe it’s from our solar system’s main asteroid belt but are asking anyone with security or dashcam footage of a fireball over the Golden area around 11:30pm PST on October 3 to send the video their way.

Once the researchers have finished their work over the course of the next month, Hamilton says she plans to keep the rock. Because it landed on her property, it legally belongs to Hamilton and she wants it as a souvenir. Her grandchildren also think it’s pretty cool.

For more stories about space rocks that have landed in British Columbia, including the 2017 meteorite that landed in Crawford Bay, read our article “Great Balls Of Fire: A Look At Famous BC Meteorites.”