[meteorite-list] Burnin' Desire

From: MARSROX_at_aol.com <MARSROX_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:01:30 2004
Message-ID: <120.11289af5.2a2ed08f_at_aol.com>

Last night and again this morning, the local NBC affiliate has featured a
"meteorite " that was discovered in Naples, Florida just down the road from
my town of Fort Myers. Any meteorite from Florida would be especially
interesting since we only have Bonita Springs H5 (found in an Caloosa Indian
midden where a 7-11 now exists), Grayton H5 (found on a beach in an Indian
midden), Okeechobee L4 (probably dredged up when they dug the channel across
the lake, misspelled in the Cat of Mets as "Okechobee") and Eustis H4 (plowed
up in a central FLA field- shades of Nebraska!).

I was alerted to the story by a friend and called the station to talk to the
reporter. I was told by the receptionist that the specimen(s) had already
been sent to Tampa for authentication.

I'm not aware of anybody in Tampa that would know a chondrite from a conch
shell. Esteemed list member Greg Shanos lives 1/2-way there in Sarasota,
however. And for an extra dime, they could send the mess to Dave Weir near
Orlando........

The reporter came on the line and told me that:
1. Some of the rocks stuck to a magnet
2. They were burnt and smelled burnt
3. Where they fell they caused a palm tree to catch fire.
4. The rocks were hot when they were picked up
5. The girls that collected the rocks heard a noise from the sky.

The reporter said that she had the rocks in a Tupperware container and hadn't
sent them off yet. We agreed to meet at a KMart parking lot.

At 7 tonight, the reporter and her photographer met me for our Tupperware
party. I looked at the collection of rocks and burnt pieces of palm fronds,
asked some questions and discovered these facts.

Two girls, age 11 and 14 live with their high-school-age brother and a single
Mom who works in the tile business. They live in a condo in East Naples. Only
the Mom was interviewed by the reporter and she called in the secondhand
report.

This last Saturday afternoon, a hot and sunny day, the girls were playing
"Barbie" (the reporter found this a "little unusual" considering the girls
ages) in their common area. Suddenly they heard a noise (unwitnessed by
others) and another noise in a cabbage palm tree about 30'/9m away from them
in a landscaped area. At the base of the palm tree they found burning palm
pieces (from the palm "boots") that they claimed had been torn off of the
trees and ignited by the hot burning meteorites they also found under the
tree. They "stamped out the fire" and collected the palm pieces and rocks
(hot, but not too hot). They showed them to their Mom and older brother and
everyone agreed that they were meteorites.....or space debris. Notably, and
to his credit, the older brother has a bedroom full of space memorabilia and
enjoys looking through his new telescope.

The reporter called Florida Gulf Coast University and spoke to a Professor
who said that "Space Debris is extremely common."

And all of this is on TV.

The rocks were small, relatively light in weight and internally beige
colored. Under a 10x they exhibited porosity and reflected round crystals.
They were burnt, and the ash coated my fingers.

"These are most likely coral rock or limestone that were burned in a fire."

Two very small slivers were attached to a magnet. I pulled them off and
checked them out. They were rusty and probably just construction, not space,
debris.

One of the palm tree pieces was about 6"/15cm and had a burned end far in
excess to the tiny size of the collected stones.

The story also appeared on the ABC affiliate, his final verdict - "We'll
probably never know if these rocks were meteorites."

Yes, we will.

And Moms, don't let your kids play with matches.

Kevin Kichinka

 
Received on Tue 04 Jun 2002 10:25:19 PM PDT