Why do I get: "Cannot cast from source type to destination type"?

I’m working on a project where a cannon shoots a cannonball. I’ve manage to create a simple code for shooting the cannonball. It worked just fine. Then I fumbled on the code and as it didn’t work I changed back to the original. And now I always get the message ‘Cannot cast from source type to destination type’. Here is the script that handles the shooting:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class shootCanonnball : MonoBehaviour {

	public Rigidbody cannonball;
	public Transform shotSpawn;
	public float shootForce;

	void Update () {
		if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown (0)) {
			GameObject cannonB = (GameObject)Instantiate(cannonball, shotSpawn.position, shotSpawn.rotation);
			cannonB.GetComponent<Rigidbody>().AddForce(transform.up * shootForce, ForceMode.Impulse);
		}
	}
}

I’ve looked up the other answers about this problem, but none of them work for me. It just seems like Unity made up an error and I don’t know from where. I even created a new project with new objects in it and wrote the code again. Again, Same error on a different project.

public Rigidbody cannonball;

should be a gameobject prefab

public GameObject cannonball;