Sorry for the length of this email, but I think most of you will find the two stories entertaining.
I have done more than my fair share of investigating meteorite falls and finds reported by the general public. My conclusion is that most folks have great imaginations and tend to overlook very obvious facts when they're blinded by the prospect they might have found something of great value.
Three years ago, I received a call from an elderly gentleman who lived in a mobile home sitting on five acres of desert about 30 miles Northwest of Phoenix. During our initial phone conversation, he told me he had live on the property for several years and hadn't noticed all the meteorites on his property until he read an article somewhere about meteorites. He had gathered almost 50 pounds of them which he had found with his new metal detector and a magnet on a string. I went over the usual questions with him and all his answers were positive. He said that he had checked adjoining neighbors property and they were none of these rocks to be found anywhere except on his property.
I've always been apprehensive about investing a lot of time and effort into leads like this, but since it was only a 90 minute drive from my house, I took the bait.
After getting out of my truck and walking up to the trailer, my heart sank when I saw a 5 gallon bucket of basalt rocks sitting next to the door. Trying to be polite, I decided to educate this octogenarian since he did have a metal detector and he lived in an area close to where a couple of other Arizona meteorites had been found. During our 30 minute conversation, he must have asked me 20 times if I was sure his rocks weren't meteorites. "But they look just like some of the pictures in this magazine I have," he kept insisting. I asked to see his magazine which turned out to be a tattered copy of Bob Haag's Field Guide of Meteorites.
My conclusion was that he was overwhelmed by the idea that there might be meteorites to be found on his property. In reading Haag's Field Guide, he discovered that some meteorites were worth a fortune and if he were to find some, it would help solve his financial problems. Just before I left, I pointed out to him that his neighbor's property was literally littered with similar rocks, all basalt. He wouldn't listen and just stood there shaking his head as I talked. He was still convinced his rocks were different and insisted they were meteorites
I referred him to ASU to get a more professional opinion...sorry Carleton.
This next incident happened about 18 months ago. I received a lead from a friend that a meteorite might have fallen in a mobile home park in North central Phoenix. A call to the owner lead to lots of questions for which he had quite convincing answers. He claimed there was a hole in one of his aluminum awnings and the impact the night before had been so great he had actually felt it when it struck his mobile home.
Again, I was apprehensive, but I'd never know for sure unless I actually went and checked it out. My good friend, Bob Holmes, agreed to meet me there and help with the search.
There was, in fact, a hole in the sheet aluminum over one of the patio areas, but there was no impact mark or crushed rock on the concrete below it. We did a quick search with metal detectors of the surrounding gravel yards and turned up the usual metal trash. More questions to the old fellow revealed some interesting facts. One, there had been a tremendous windstorm the night before. Two, one of his neighbors had been by several days before to complain about a large TV antennae blocking his view of the nearby mountains. The old man had been hooked up to cable for over a year but had never removed the antennae. When we went back outside, we discovered that the antennae and it's one inch mounting pole were nowhere to be found. A closer look at the hole in the awning showed it to be circular and one inch in diameter. Conclusion - the wind had blown the antennae off the roof of the trailer and the mounting pole had punched a hole in the awning as it tumbled across the roof before disappearing into the neighborhood.
Our stubborn old friend was still convinced it was a meteorite. He said he initially decided to not show us the meteorite because he was afraid we would try to talk him out of it ( this was the one thing he was correct about) and he knew it was very valuable. He disappeared into the trailer and came out with a black rock with some white quartz embedded in it. It was six inches in diameter. When I asked him to explain how a six inch rock had made a one inch hole, he didn't have an answer but still insisted his rock was a meteorite.
"See the fusion crust," he said, " and the interior is white where it has been broken open."
I asked him how he knew about fusion crust and the probability of meteorites having a light interior. "Oh, I read about it in a magazine the night before the meteorite hit my mobile home." Well, I asked if I might see his magazine, and it turned out to be, you guessed it, another of Bob Haag's Field Guide of Meteorites!
My list of questions I ask folks who claim they have found a meteorites now includes,"do you own any books or magazines about meteorites...especially one written by Bob Haag?
Best,
John Gwilliam
At 11:27 AM 1/4/03 -0800, Frank Prochaska wrote:
Hello Kevin and List, I am inclined to believe that this was not an actual meteorite fall, for a couple reasons. I live in Washington State, and have done a fair amount of amateur research on the meteorites from my state, and some of the particulars of the story from Florida remind me of the account of the Kirkland, WA fall that turned out to be a hoax. (Though it sure doesn't seem like the gentlemen in Florida is trying to mislead anyone.)Something that makes a 2" diameter hole will have reached terminal velocity; it will not have retained any of it's original cosmic velocity. This means it will essentially be free-falling, straight down, towards the Earth's center of gravity. A 45 - 60 degree impact angle at the Earth's surface for a small free-falling meteorite is not consistent with what we know of the physics of falls. Another detail that, for me at least, would call into question whether the perpetrator here was in fact a meteorite is the damage done to the R.V. A 2 inch diameter meteorite is awefully small to punch through a fiberglass roof, 3/8 of an inch of plywood, and continue through insulation. I doubt a 2 inch rock in free-fall would have enough kinetic energy to do that, and it seems that plenty of 2 inch stones have been picked up from fresh strewn-fields from land that did not show much, if any, sign of impact pitting or marking. The cases of meteorites penetrating houses and so forth have been significantly larger that 2 inches in diameter, and remember the mass of such objects increases with the cube of diameter. It's an interesting story and I am curious as to what did in fact make that hole, but I doubt it's a meteorite. Frank Prochaska -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 9:46 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [meteorite-list] A Meteorite Now Doin' 20mph in the fast lane..... Many of us get a chance to investigate freshly reported meteorite falls of which 99.99% are quickly resolved. Here's one that's going to remain a mystery. I've just spoken with a 72-year-old gentleman who believes that a meteorite fell through his R.V. All of the information contained herein is from this individual and I haven't researched the particulars. The alleged event occurred last September, at about 7:30PM during a sunset obscured by threatening clouds. The Lehigh Acres, Florida retiree, was parked at a campground on the banks of the Potomac River. He believes he endured "a warning shot from God" when an object crashed into the roof of his 30' (9 m) Itasca motorhome penetrating the fiberglass roof, continuing through 3/8" (8 mm) plywood ("the hole looked rounded like someone hit it with a ballpeen hammer"), apparently becoming embedded somewhere within 4" (10 cm) of hard foam insulation. He was standing next to the door of his R.V. (recreational vehicle) when he heard the crash. He looked up to see what was falling, and told me upon questioning that he saw no smoketrail. However, his view was blocked by adjacent trees in a wooded area with threatening skies. He said that "had it been 12" (30 cm) over, it would have hit me in the head." He crawled up the ladder attached to the side of the vehicle high enough to note that there were no tree branches that had fallen. He observed a 2" (5 cm.) diameter hole and that the object had continued through the plywood ceiling. He was surprised at the angle of descent and estimated it at 45-60 degrees from the West. It was going to rain so he covered the hole with plastic, and called his insurance agent. A Hartford Insurance representative visited the next day and assessed the damage as due to "either a meteorite or a falling object from a plane." Because rain was still imminent, repairmen immediately repaired the fiberglass roof without searching for the object possibly embedded somewhere in the insulation. No one thought it was worth the trouble. Notably, this gentleman tells me that the campground is across from a US Government military installation in Indian Head, Maryland, an area of restricted airspace. Kevin Kichinka ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
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