Commuter Jet Lands at Dulles. Well, Most of It.

It was about 3 feet by 3 feet, he said, with an 18-inch part sticking up that had thick black bristles. A tag on the piece had information about the maker (Bombardier), a model number and the date Aug. 28, 2002. Clearly this was not a product from Mars.

"I took a quick look around to make sure it wasn't a piece of a big wreck," Kevin Loewenstein said. "There was remarkably little damage from the fall. Because it was a flat piece, it probably fluttered to Earth. It must have had a pretty soft landing.

"The weird thing is no one saw it," he said, noting that the park is usually crowded with kids.

He stayed with the piece and snapped some pictures until a Montgomery County Park Police officer and a manager arrived.

They had "figured I'd found a wing or wreck of model airplane, and I said, 'I know what I'm looking at! I wouldn't have called you for that,' " he said. "They were very surprised, as I was."

After looking into it, park officials unraveled the mystery.

Although her UFO fantasy didn't pan out, Hilary Loewenstein said she wasn't all that disappointed.

"We were very excited to find something like that in the town of Boyds, where nothing ever happens," she said.