[meteorite-list] NP Article, 12-1954 Meteorite Hits Women (Really..:-)

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:23:47 2004
Message-ID: <OE161wcdZ06YO4OPXok00000a49_at_hotmail.com>

Title: Council Bluffs Nonpareil
City: Council Bluffs, Iowa
Date: Wendnesday, December 22, 1954
Page: 1


A Legal Battle Over Meteorite
Rough-Edged Rock May Bring $5,000

     STLACAUGA, Ala. AP - Twenty-two days ago Mrs. Hulitt Hodges, a plump,
pleasant-faced matron of 31, lay down to take a little nap.
     There was a thunderous crash. She felt a violent blow on her left arm
and hip. Sunlight shone through a hole in the ceiling. A rough-edge black
"rock" lay near her.
     She had been struck by a fragment of a shooting star which had hurtled
to the earth from outer space. Scientists said she was the first person in
recorded history known to be hit by a meteorite.
     She still has to spend the part of each day in bed because of the
severe bruises she suffered. She has nightmares, in which "it seems like I
hear the sound."

Landlady Files Suit

     She and her husband moved out of their comfortable frame residence to a
smaller house after her landlady Mrs. Birdie Guy filed suit for the
meteorite, for which more than $5,000 has been offered.
     Mrs. Guy's lawyer said the Supreme Court has held that a meteorite
belongs to the owner of the property on which it falls.
     "The meteorite is personal property," argues Atty. Huel M. Love for
Mrs. Hodges. "It didn't come to rest on Mrs. Guy's property - it came to
rest on Mrs. Hodges."
     Both the Smithsonian Institution and Alabama State Museum at the
University of Alabama want the fragment, but the Smithsonian says the
meteorite itself isn't worth $500.
     Mrs. Hodges says, "I think God intended it for me. After all, it hit
me."
     The meteorite is in care of her lawyer now.



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Received on Wed 12 Mar 2003 01:07:37 AM PST