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Mining for Meteorites - Part 5 of 12

KRAJICK KEVIN (1999) Mining for Meteorites (Smithsonian, March 1999, pp.
90 -100):

In any case, the world's kingpin dealer is a startling, likable
Tucsonite named Robert Haag. With his curly tresses and unstoppable
friendliness, Haag is a cross between Prince Valiant and a TV
evangelist. The son of mineral dealers, he started in the early '80s
hawking gimmicky "space passports" in shopping malls, then progressed to
actual space rocks. A few weeks after the Portales fall, I met him and
Mike Farmer, a college student who's also taken up dealing, at a bar.
They plunked down dueling meteorite chunks to wow the waitress and
slugged back pitcher-size beers. "I just love the rocks! It means I can
play astronaut. Never in the history of the planet have there been more
available, because free enterprise has made them so cool!" chortled
Haag. He will go anywhere, anytime to find a meteorite. Siberia? When's
the next plane? Burkina Faso? No problem. He bangs on farmhouse doors in
Kansas, treks in the Sahara, hang-glides in Chile. In 1991 the
sharp-eyed Haag spotted the first piece of moon rock ever to come into
private hands, among bucketfuls of meteorites he had purchased from
Australian collectors.
His secret weapon: the best place to find meteorites is where others
have already found them - the so-called strewn field, over which an
object has shattered. He does not necessarily hunt himself, instead he
convinces everyone else to do it for him. In developing countries, all
it takes is a side-by-side display of U.S. dollars and a sample
meteorite so people will know what to look for. A few years ago Haag
showed up in Gibeon, Namibia, site of a well-known fall that everyone
considered thoroughly mined. The high school principal lined up all 400
students for a look at Haag's samples, and shortly after, Haag left town
with more than 500 pounds of previously overlooked fragments. Some
hunters enlist farmers, friends or colleagues, notes astronomer O.
Richard Norton, author of the book Rocks From Space. "Haag uses whole
towns and villages."

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