[meteorite-list] Morocco new fall news.

From: John Birdsell <birdsell_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Dec 3 12:31:14 2004
Message-ID: <41B0A2F0.6010204_at_email.arizona.edu>

Hello Mike and Welcome home! Dawn and I are both releived to hear that
you made it back safely. No meteorite is worth taking that kind of
risk! One may get lucky once or twice, but by tempting fate like that,
fate will eventually catch up with you. Sounds as though the military
is probably staking out that area and sending regular patrols to try to
catch the meteorite hunters. Anyone that takes you up on your offer is
totally
nuts!

Take care


-John & Dawn



Michael Farmer wrote:

> Hello everyone, I have just arrived back in Tucson after one of the
> most difficult and dangerous trips I have ever done.
>
> I was in Morocco for the last week to investigate the new fall and a
> new Pallasite. Everything that could have gone wrong on this trip,
> did, so I left Morocco very quickly and returned home.
>
> I will make a very long story short but it should serve as a warning
> to all.
>
> I got some of the new Pallasite last month in Morocco, and planned a
> trip to go to the site of the meteorite find. It is in Western Sahara,
> right on the Algeria/Morocco/Mauritania borders. This is the same
> Pallasite that John Birdsell has some of.
> I was assured that it was no problem to go to the area, but when I got
> to Assa, we changed into a very old military vehicle, this is when I
> should have realized that something was wrong.
> When we got to Zag, we detoured off road for about 20 kilometers to
> avoid the town and police/military checkpoints.
> The meteorite is 30 kilometers south and east of Al Mahbas Western
> Sahara, and when we got about 20 kilometers from the area, we went
> off-road. That is when the Moroccans told me that this was a
> military-only, prohibited zone, and that we were not allowed there! I
> of course got a little concerned (especially when we saw several
> mine-fields. We were driving cross-country at night with no lights,
> only by full moonlight, (not a safe thing in an old war zone where
> mine-fields are still around).
> The next morning we arrived at the tent of the nomad who found the
> pallasite. He led us there, over the berm and military fighting
> emplacements to the site, Algeria was only about 2 kilometers away.
> The place is a small area about 10 meters across, many pieces, mostly
> shale fragments full of olivine crystals, and some small individuals.
> I searched it for about an hour and found many pieces, and one of the
> other Moroccans found a piece about 80 grams, just metal, no crystals.
> We had planned a careful search, but one of the Moroccans spotted a
> military patrol coming so we packed up quickly and fled. It is very
> flat there, nowhere to hide. They chased us for about 2 hours but we
> were too far ahead and they could not catch up, but it was close
> enough for me. An American with Metal-detectors, GPS,s, video cameras,
> and Satellite phones, is not welcome in a closed military zone. I had
> to hide as much as possible, dressed like a Moroccan, under blankets,
> until we left Western Sahara and got back to Assa.
> It was not a fun trip, and when we got to Assa, the hotel owner found
> out we had been in Al Mahbas and called the local military colonel,
> who promptly arrived to find out why we were in a prohibited area, and
> demanded a large bribe to allow us to avoid some very serious
> problems. The bribe was paid needless to say, but they had my
> information and copy of my passport from the hotel.
> I immediately demanded to get back to civilization and get the hell
> out of the country, which I did.
> I will give everyone the coordinates of the Pallasite, and anyone with
> the cajones to go there can be my guest. I have been around the world
> many times, and to worse places than this, but there is nothing that
> will put the fear of god in you like driving as fast as the vehicle
> will go for hours with military chasing you through mine-fields!
> This business can get dangerous as I just found out.
>
> On the second note, we also dealt with the new fall there, and it is a
> total disaster. I did not bother to go to the site, as all of my guys
> were there and none of them got any of the meteorite, and the people
> who had it offered it to them for $6 to $10 gram! I think that is
> absolutely ludicrous and anyone who pays that will seriously regret it
> as I expect it will be $1.00 gram soon enough, like Amgala and
> Bensour, the price will spike at the beginning, and collapse when more
> and more comes out.
> There is a lot of it, many kilos and it will be available. I had other
> problems to deal with there and the new fall was the least on my list.
> There is a lot more to this entire story, but this is the gist of it.
> For me, the Moroccans have become far to untrustworthy lately and I am
> likley done with that mess over there.
> Michael Farmer
>
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Received on Fri 03 Dec 2004 12:31:28 PM PST