CUTHBERT - A south Georgia man believes he found a piece of the space shuttle Columbia on his land, which is hundreds of miles east of where most of the debris has fallen. <br>
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William Burnett came across what looked like a broken roof shingle Sunday while he was mowing part of his 90 acres of farmland in southwest Georgia. Burnett called state emergency officials when he and some friends couldn't identify the black, featherweight object. <br>
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Burnett's wife, Gloria, said ``It's black and it looks like it has fiberglass going through it. It's black as coal and about the size of a half sheet of notebook paper.''<br>
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The director of Randolph County's Emergency Management Agency, Max Pittman, said the object also smells like a burnt electrical device. <br>
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A spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, Lisa Ray, said state authorities contacted the Federal Emergency Management Agency and NASA about the object. <br>
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Ray said, ``Nothing has been confirmed at this point. With all the debris they are covering, it would take a little while to get to Georgia.'' <br>
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Authorities told the Burnett's not to touch the debris, until officials could reach their home in Springvale -- eight miles west of Cuthbert -- in about a week. <br>
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Pittman said no one has touched the debris on Burnett's property. To make sure it didn't float away, they covered it with a bucket and placed a cinder block atop the bucket. <br>
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Dave Bary of the Environmental Protection Agency said, ``It's very unlikely for it to reach as far east as Georgia. Over time as the investigation continues, if it is found that shuttle debris has drifted that far, it will become a part of the investigation.''
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