Samsung satellite crashes in family's yard

Nancy Mumby-Welke lives in rural Saginaw County, MI; yesterday morning she was about to let her horses out when she discovered the crashed, humming remains of a Samsung satellite on her property.

The satellite may have been launched for Samsung's "Spaceselfie" marketing gimmick, and the company has agreed to remove it from Mumby-Welke's property.

The details of the story are thin and confusing. The satellite was in remarkably good shape for something that fell from space -- satellites are typically flimsy in construction, because mass is prohibitively expensive to lift into space, and because there are few hazards in orbit, except for orbiting space debris, which is so fast-moving that it's effectively impossible to stop.

But I'm loathe to attribute this to some kind of marketing hoax: it's hard to see how "our satellites might crash in your yard!" would be beneficial to Samsung's image in any way.

Nancy Mumby-Welke shared the video on Facebook, walking up to a satellite lying on its side. "You never know what's going to happen," Welke says in the video.

"This baby fell out of the sky and landed in our yard," she went on to say. ,p>According to the Gratiot County Herald, Welke heard the crash around 8:45 a.m. just before they were going to let their horses out. "Thank God none of the horses were out and it didn't land on the house," Welke explained in the video.

'You never know what's going to happen' | Michigan family surprised when satellite crashes onto their property [13 On Your Side]

(Thanks, Lou Cabron!)

(Image: Nancy Mumby-Welke/Facebook]