[meteorite-list] State of the Great Thuathe Race

From: Adam Hupe <adamhupe_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:18:30 2004
Message-ID: <02f701c2dc75$606c7480$ba06e70c_at_attbi.com>

Dear list members,

Thank you for a very entertaining morning and afternoon. There is nothing
like some good old debate to wake things up.

First of all I found the picture of the monkey wagging its head back and
forth saying "those are not black rocks" posted by Tim Heitz to be very
entertaining! What can I say, this is one of the funniest things I have
seen in a long time. It was worth a chuckle and reminded me of some of the
doubting Thomasas I heard from this morning or a spectator trying to insight
a riot in the middle of a tense situation.

We are sorry to hear that Mike Farmer was affected by heatstroke. Like a
true treasure hunter he did mention the recovery of some material which
shows the Farmer/Olsen/South African team is having some success. This team
went out there cold with very little information and is proving to be more
cunning then we had original predicted. The last word we got is that they
are now teaming up with the university to try to acquire the main mass.
Good job taking care of the native people! I can hardly wait to hear the
details later.

As for the Lang/Hupe team they are in hot pursuit of the stone that broke
the water carrier and were fortunate enough to have a lengthy head start by
partnering with a group of South Africans who have had great success in
organizing search parties finding over 14 kilos of the material . They
just arrived in Africa today and will engage the other teams in conversation
if they happen to cross paths. This team may be temporarily diverted to
another country because another hot lead has just materialized. Maybe all
that will be left will be some photo opportunities.

We heard that an Australian team is due to arrive next week and will be
teaming up with yet another group of South Africans. We wish them luck and
to have a safe trip. I could image sitting around a campfire with this
motley crew drinking beers that look like oil cans. I have a feeling they
will at least have a good time!

The real winners are the villagers who once picked up the stones muttering
"masole" and tossing them as far as they could. They are now getting a much
needed infusion of cash and supplies by collecting these once scorned
objects. Do not ask me what "mosole" means because I do not know. It
doesn't sound good whatever it means. Somebody asked us what a "thokolost"
was. I can not answer this question either because I can not find a
translation for it but if it can toss stones at several hundred miles an
hour I would hate to run into one.

All the best,

Adam Hupe
Received on Mon 24 Feb 2003 09:27:00 PM PST