[meteorite-list] Elma Has Gone Meteor Crazy

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:21:06 2004
Message-ID: <200307172118.OAA27349_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.thedailyworld.com/daily/2003/Jul-17-Thu-2003/news/news1.html

Elma has gone meteor crazy

By Levi Pulkkinen
The Daily World (Washington)
July 17, 2003

ELMA - A meteorite is a seductive thing. It draws people
towards it, pulls the obsessed to distant corners of the world.

Meteorites have drawn brothers Adam and Greg Hupe from
their home in Renton to Africa and Europe. Tuesday they
were drawn to Elma to examine the rocks three young men
found early Tuesday morning after seeing something they
believe to be a meteor heading toward the Elma High School
athletic fields.

Unfortunately for Elma residents who've caught meteorite
fever, the Hupe brothers had little good news.

"It doesn't look good at this point, but that doesn't mean you
won't find something," Adam Hupe told the three young men.

Hupe said he will pass the rocks on to University of
Washington professor Tony Irving, a former research
scientist with the NASA who often works with the brothers,
for further testing. He doesn't, however, hold out much hope
that the small, black rocks are of extra - terrestrial origin.

Speaking with the three might - be witnesses, the Hupes
said nothing to the young men to cast doubt on what the
teens say they saw, only that the rocks they believed to be
meteoritic were not.

It was a welcome change for Elma Senior Brian Reed, who
said he feels many onlookers believe he and his friends are
"full of it." To the critics and cameras, Brian Reed, his cousin
Scott Reed and friend Dan Raney could do little but repeat
their mantra - "We know what we seen."

While driving on Vance Creek Road just after 12 a.m.
Tuesday, the three bored teen - agers saw a fireball with a
tail streaking out of the sky followed by a flash. It looked like
it was headed toward the Elma track and the young men
went for a look.

Once there, they say they examined the apparently pock -
marked shotput pit with a tiny, squeezable flashlight. They
found glassy black rocks they thought were space rock.
Excited, Brian called his mother, then the police for
assistance.

Now, it appears those rocks were not out of this world, but
the Hupes encouraged the young men and other would - be
meteorite hounds to keep searching.

The area where the young men grabbed what they thought
were meteorites was swarming with children and adults from
all over the Harbor. They sifted through the pea - gravel and
combed the grass looking for the extraordinary.

The brothers showed the searchers sample meteorites from
other expeditions, hoping to give locals a better picture of
their quarry.

It's the same routine they went through last March, when a
meteorite came down in Chicago's southside neighborhood.

Hours after hearing about the strike, Adam was on a plane on
his way to Chicago. A meteorite had smashed through
residents' homes, breaking windows and piercing roofs.

Once on the lookout, locals started bringing in everything
from gravel to large chunks of asphalt.

"We went to Chicago and about 90 percent of the rocks
people brought to us weren't meteorites," he said.

"But once we showed people what real meteorites look like,
they started bringing them in.

"That's what we're here for, to show people what to look
for."

Greg Hupe said he and his brother do similar "show - and -
tell" demonstrations when they travel to Saharan Africa,
training nomadic Bedouin to search for the world's oldest
rocks.

Dan Raney said the Hupes impressed him a great deal.

"Those guys are cool," Elma Senior Dan Raney said.
"They're just awesome, really laid back."

After spending hours talking about treasure hunting with
them, the Hupe brothers gave the three young men small
meteorites.

Their cores sparked with elemental iron, the matte black
rocks have a strangeness about them. Taking the thumb -
size meteorites, the young men carefully pocket them only a
little less entranced than when they saw what they saw two
nights before.
Received on Thu 17 Jul 2003 05:18:20 PM PDT