[meteorite-list] India Meteorite Report from the scene

From: Michael Farmer <meteoriteguy_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:24 2004
Message-ID: <20031010055427.64559.qmail_at_web20911.mail.yahoo.com>

Hi everyone, internet here is little better than smoke
signals, it has taken me almost 2 hours to go through
50 emails, so slow, and Matteo's crying like a 2 year
old baby. Matteo, shut the hell up, PLEASE, if I see
another email about "Other people is make prices ruin"
I will have to beat the hell out of you when I see you
(Just kidding, but only a little).
OK
I am in the strewnfield.
I have a small piece of the meteorite. IT is an H
chondrite and similar to Zag, veining and
slickensides.
There is EXTREME flooding here, all parts are under
water, there is NO HOPE of recovering more material
unless it is simply in a village and not known about
yet. the strewnfield is some miles long, traveling
between two villages that the local assured me were
only 5 km apart by air took over 2 hours by road (if
you can call it that). India is beautiful and horrible
at the same time. The road is covered with untold
thousands of people, dogs, cows, goats, etc, NONE of
which move or are even slightly annoyed by the
incessant use of the horn, we actually ran over a dogs
foot yesterday, he would not move until the car ran
right over him. I felt sorry for it but then again if
anything is that stupid.....
I also wish I had a gun with me, to put some of the
stupidist creature on the planet (The cow) out of
their misery (or ignorant bliss) whichever it is.
There are thousands of them, laying in the roads, cars
just go around them whereever possible.
 the entire area is flooded, and I mean bad, hundreds
of thousands of miles under water, looks like the
ocean with small patched of trees and huts standing
out of it. Roads are almost not more than small trails
with everyone and everything blocking them.
Most of the meteorite has been taken by the police, I
am working on tracking down a couple of pieces, but it
looks hopeless as it takes me 6 hours to get to the
area even though it is only 70 miles away, the max
spees is about 10 miles an hour on the highway and
about 2 miles an hour on the village route.
these are small villages, I mean aobut 10 familes
each, no electricity, nothing more than some mud huts
in a land of mud. I had to go on motorcycle for a few
miles last night with a spectacular lightning show in
the distance, it was the most eery and beatiful drive
I have ever taken, the flooded swampland, cool wind,
nice people and all made me fell like I was in some
sort of 16 th century expedition. When we got to the
village, the people showed me where a 6-8 kilo stone
fell, coming down right down the slanted roof of a
hut, denting in the grass roof and making a large
crater at the base of the hut. That stone was taken 2
days ago, but I have two competing guys traking down
the person who took it, to get it for me. We will see
if this hut smasher comes home with me. I do have a 13
gram fragment of it, (They smashed it). The meteorite
is like Zag, large veins and slickensides.
The 6 hour trip back to town last night was the most
harrowing of my life, I would say at least 50 near
head on collisions with giant trucks, busses, all
without lights, cars on the wrong side of the road,
washed out roads, cows of course (and they would much
rather drive off a cliff and die than kill a cow
here!).
there should be hundreds of stones, but it is all
rivers and swamps and rice paddies, all under several
feet of water, so virtually none will be recovered.
I saw photos of the 5 kilo stone, very nice.
Anyway, sorry for the format of this email, but using
the computer here is not easy.
 Anyone thinking of coming to get some, forget it, as
it is, with my 13 gram piece, i will have paid over
$400.00 gram for my piece! But I will have memories of
a lifetime of this hunt, which doing it alone, I
already consider by far my most exotic and
interesting.
the people in the villages do not speak english or
Hindi, but Orissi, a local tribal language.
the meteorite fell only about 1/2 mile from the Bay of
Bengal (but now it seems to be in the Bay of bengal
with everything under water anyway).

I will post more info as soon as I can.
Mike Farmer
Meteorite Hunter
Writing from Orissa India.
Received on Fri 10 Oct 2003 01:54:27 AM PDT