It didn’t come from an airplane.

The mystery about the origin of a 16-inch, unidentified falling object that fell from the sky Monday and sliced “like butter” through the roof of a parked vehicle deepened Tuesday, after an official with the Federal Aviation Administration announced that whatever it is, it’s not a piece of aircraft.

At about 4 p.m. Monday, the brownish, hook-shaped piece of metal crashed through the roof of an unoccupied 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander parked at the Happy Harry’s drugstore at 536 Main St. in Stanton. Its arrival came with a boom that one witness told Mill Creek Fire Company Chief James Howell sounded like an explosion.

The SUV’s owner, Susan Wilson, said she was inside the drugstore at the time. When she returned to her car, she found ash and debris on the driver’s seat and gaping hole in the vehicle’s roof. Nestled on the rear passenger side floor she found the hot object still smoldering from its descent.

“The metal was still too hot to handle,” Delaware State Police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Whitmarsh said.

Once the mysterious object had cooled down, it was turned over to the FAA personnel from the Philadelphia office. The federal agency was doing some last procedural work on the object Tuesday, but FAA spokesman Jim Peters said he’s confident it didn’t come from any plane.

Wilson, of Wilmington and her fiance Michael Roberto have struggled with how to deal with the aftermath of the object falling from the sky. Their SUV has been towed to a repair shop and the couple is waiting on the bill. Lacking answers to what launched the hunk of metal, Wilson’s insurance has asked her to pay the deductible for the damage.