[meteorite-list] Juancheng Detail

From: Darryl Pitt <darryl_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:58:36 -0400
Message-ID: <D9523328-5E0B-4724-B00B-5D799ECF171B_at_dof3.com>

Perhaps the coolest thing about Juancheng is the spiritual hammering
of Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiao Peng. (Cribbed from a natural
history catalog):


On February 15, 1997, while it was still Valentine?s Day in the US,
meteorites rained down on China?s Shandong Province piercing the roofs
of several homes. As result of CNN coverage of the event, Chinese
meteorite and fossil dealers flocked to the site only to be met by
hundreds of schoolchildren. Juancheng meteorites instantly became an
important collectible in China, as this event was believed to have
foreshadowed the death of Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiao Peng.
Said a Chinese man who journeyed to the Juancheng site, ?Our Leader
protects us from all frontiers, and when the sky-tissue which
separates us from the heavens is torn by a rain of stones, it is time
for Our Leader to go and protect us from his new home in the heavens.?
Chairman Deng apparently subscribed to this point of view and died
several days later. While many large specimens of Juancheng were given
to Communist Party Leaders, tens of kilos of smaller material still
made it to the West.
Received on Tue 17 Mar 2009 03:58:36 PM PDT