[meteorite-list] The basket-- delivered

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:01:23 -0500
Message-ID: <nseis4tvp3no47hhno2o8opf9ihkir16ll_at_4ax.com>

Returning it was the honorable thing to do. However, I think if I had managed
to buy that for 10 bucks, when a team of squirrel paleontologists found it
buried with my bones 10 million years in the future, it would initiate a flurry
of publications on Ape Age funerary rituals.



http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/03/24/20090324meteorfound0324.html

Long-lost meteorite comes home to Ariz.

by John Faherty - Mar. 24, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

It was never just any meteorite. Unlike most, this one had a name.

The "Basket" meteorite, which screamed to Earth 50,000 years ago, is shaped a
bit like a basket with a handle.

It was stolen from Meteor Crater east of Flagstaff back in August 1968.

The headline in The Arizona Republic said, "Nationwide police bulletin issued on
stolen meteorite."

Tom Lynch did not know any of this three years ago when he stopped at a garage
sale near his home in Wisconsin and spotted an odd hunk of metal. For sale. $10.

The retired GM worker liked the way the thing looked. It was bronze, he thought,
or maybe copper. "I figured, for $10, it was worth at least that in scrap," he
said.

But Lynch never scrapped it. Instead, he used it to hold down his young
grandson's plastic basketball stand. It weighed 49 pounds. "It worked just
perfect."

But then, he was watching the Travel Channel one day and he learned a little bit
about meteorites. Then, he learned a lot more.

Ultimately, he learned that this was no hunk of scrap metal. It was, in fact,
quite famous in an obscure kind of way.

On Monday, 40 years after it was stolen, Lynch brought the Basket meteorite
home.

The Basket meteorite began as part of the Canyon Diablo Meteor, which flew
roughly 40,000 mph. That's 11 miles per second, or 50 times the speed of sound.

Lynch calls himself a rummage-aholic. That means he goes to a lot of garage
sales.

He says he has no way of knowing exactly where he bought this thing three years
ago.

"Sometimes, I try to go back to a rummage sale on the same day I saw something,
and I can't find it," Lynch said. "So, I have no idea."

He also says that when he bought it, of course, he thought it was a piece of
scrap metal.

But he did begin to wonder about why it never rusted despite sitting outside for
three Wisconsin winters.

Then, Lynch saw a show about a woman who searched for meteorites.

He learned that one test for a meteorite is to see if a magnet sticks to it. So,
he got out a magnet.

"Like, bam," Lynch said. "Right to it."

He took the hunk to a museum in Milwaukee. Staff there sent him to the Field
Museum in Chicago.

Lynch said scientists there sawed off a small piece, tested it and figured it
was about 4.6 billion years old.

Eventually, the Field Museum and an amateur geoscientist Lynch had befriended
realized this uniquely shaped meteorite may have been the one missing from
Arizona.

The first substantial proof was a postcard, found on eBay, of the long-lost
meteorite.

"Basket meteor," the label on the postcard read. The picture was a match.

"I bought the meteorite for $10, and the postcard cost $15," Lynch said.

Meteor Crater is three-fourths of 1 mile across and nearly 700 feet deep.

The Basket meteorite was stolen on a busy Monday in summer.

It's possible somebody just picked it up and walked out.

"It had a handle, and back then they didn't worry about people stealing stuff
like we do now," said Brad Andes, president of Meteor Crater Enterprises.

What happened next remains a mystery.

Why steal it? Who did it? Where was it?

But the meteor never appeared on the market. And there is a market.

The objects can cost hundreds or thousands or more.

When Lynch first learned he had a genuine meteorite, he became excited about the
idea of selling his $10 find for some serious money.

But when he knew it had been stolen, he had no second thoughts.

"Call them people and tell them we got it and we'll give it back," Lynch told
the amateur geoscientists who had taken an interest in the meteorite. "It was
the right thing to do."

Lynch later learned that Meteor Crater Enterprises would pay him $1,000 for
knowing the right thing to do.

But it may have cost them a little more than that.

It was $1,000 plus two rooms at the hotel," Lynch said. "Plus, I told them I was
going to turn my granddaughter loose in the gift shop."

After the meteor crashed into the Earth, small fragments were scattered 7 miles
in each direction.

So, Lynch loaded up his meteorite and drove it across the country. On a cool and
crisp Monday morning, he opened the door of his van at the Meteor Crater
Interactive Learning Center.

The meteorite was sitting on the floor right behind the passenger seat, below
his granddaughter's feet.

Andes placed it on the parking lot and pulled out a picture of the real Basket
meteorite.

There was no doubt that this was the one. From the shape to the colors to the
protrusions and small holes, it was a perfect match.

Andes picked it up in both arms like a baby and carried it inside.

He walked past European tourists and Americans on spring break.

Lynch, 62, helped his son and daughter load his granddaughter into a stroller.

He was actually glad to be rid of the Basket meteorite.

"I tell you, it got a little nerve-racking," Lynch said. "I basically slept with
it last night. But this has been wonderful."
Received on Tue 24 Mar 2009 04:01:23 PM PDT