[meteorite-list] Look Out Below! Metal and Meteorwrongs

From: Thunder Stone <stanleygregr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:45:58 -0700
Message-ID: <SNT117-W540BFB47F00BA9FF72B5B7D2A90_at_phx.gbl>

For anyone interested in Meteorwrongs

Greg S.


http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/4021/look_out_below.html


Look Out Below!
Metal and Meteorwrongs
Mystery metal chunks and meteorites that aren't what they seem to be
By Peter Hassall
???
July 2010
Meteorwrongs


MYSTERY METAL
Odd bits of metal have fallen from the sky for centuries, as Charles Fort recorded in his books. Today we have possible sources such as satellites and high-flying aircraft that did not exist in Fort?s time, while some recent apparent falls have boasted an industrial origin.

Al Smith was shifting a sofa with a forklift in his moving company?s warehouse in Jersey City, New Jersey, on the morning of 18 February 2009 when a brick-sized chunk of hot metal smashed through a wooden roof beam and shelf right next to him. After an examination, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) said the object was not from a plane. It was suspected to have been ejected from a mulching machine somewhere in the vicinity. A shaken, but unhurt, Smith was planning to buy a lottery ticket. [1]

A week later, a 2.7kg metal chunk smashed through the roof of a Buford Drive, Southeast Oak Cliff house. Luckily nobody was at home. Dallas police confirmed it was a piece that had flown off a grinder at the nearby Big Bird Tree Service. [2]

But not all metal falls can be explained so easily. On 26 February 2009, a mystery piece of something smashed Richard Orsot and Linda Lang?s 1995 Isuzu Trooper SUV, wrecking the dashboard and partially melting the windscreen.

?There was a loud explosion and bright light,? said Orsot, aged 61. ?It was a big kaboom,? added Leroy Bolls, a neighbour, ?like a sonic boom, but real close.?

Mike Birondo, a fire investi?gator, was puzzled: ?I can?t make heads or tails of it because I haven?t experienced something like this,? he said. ?Whatever it was hit with some force and had some heat to it.? [3]

On the night of 13 May 2009, residents of a town in western Kazakhstan saw two silver objects fall out of the sky. The silver balls were 60cm in diameter, had a silvery surface with what appeared to be a small opening. Attempts to break them open with tools failed to dent them. Aleksandr Ivanov, head of the local emerg?encies service, said they were most likely ?fragments of a man-made aircraft?.[4]


METEORWRONGS
There are numerous reports of strange rocks being found on the ground coincident with a recent fireball sighting or meteor shower. In almost all such cases, despite the sincerity of the finder, the alleged meteorite turns out to have a more earthly origin. There are also some reports in which it seems likely that the finder has deliberately dreamt up a story about witnessing the fall of a fiery object to tie in with an unusual rock that they have found. Unfortunately, it appears that the report of 14-year-old Gerrit Blank being hit by a tiny meteorite falls into this category (FT253:10). Adam Weiner has used basic physics to figure out that the alleged meteorite would not have had a ?velocity sufficient to induce enough compressional heating to produce a flash of light?; nor could it have created ?an impact crater a foot in diameter?.[5] In fact, the alleged crater looks remarkably like a filled-in pothole!

On 13 August 2009, Carlene Walker of Luella, Texas, found two rocks that she suspected were meteorites. She got in touch with several local experts to check. Then, after finding a third similar rock in her backyard, she met with local geo?logist John Moody, who examined the rocks.

?I can?t say yes or no. All three rocks look similar, and parts of each have turned to glass,? he said. ?Because glass is a super-cooled liquid, using a hand lens on the more polished-looking parts of the rocks reveals waves in the surface, a sign that parts of the rock have vitrified, or turned to glass. It?s almost like waves. They?ve been subjected to a great amount of heat. These are not like something you?d just find around. Volcanic slag can be like this, or slag from refinery places,? Moody explained.

The first two rocks were found within 3m of each other and the last was found behind the house. Moody said the house was far from the road and behind a tree line, making it difficult for anyone to have thrown the rocks onto the property. The house was also some distance from the railway line, where similar rocks were used on the tracks. [6]

Six-year-old Josh Chapple of Barnstaple, Devon, went to collect eggs from his family?s brood of hens and instead found what he thought was a rare egg-sized meteorite in his backyard. The unusual rock was black, 6 by 4cm in size and gleamed like crystal.

?I saw it on the ground near our back door ? there were burn marks all over it. I?ve never seen anything like it before. It was dark and shiny,? he said.

?Josh is so excited, it?s quite incredible really and it?s exciting to think how far the rock has travelled. I told them to take photos of where it had landed and watch out for aliens,? added Andrew, his father.[7]

Robert Elliott, one of the world?s foremost meteorite collectors, realised that Josh had found a meteorwrong, not a genuine meteorite. ?I read the story on the Journal website and knew straight away that it wasn?t a meteorite. However, I didn?t want Josh to be disappointed so I thought I?d send him a genuine meteor?ite from my collection. I think it?s great that he was out looking for meteorites at such a young age ? it shows a great spark of enthusiasm,? he said.

Josh was pleased with his real meteorite, discovered in the Sahara in 1999. ?It?s brilliant ? this has come all the way from space. It?s a bit different from the one I found. It looks more like a lump of metal. I?m very interested in meteorites now and will defin?itely keep looking for them,? gushed the youngster.

Robert Elliott lives in Fife, Scotland, and has been a full-time meteorite hunter for the past 13 years. He bought his first meteorite from the small ads pages of an astronomy magazine in the mid-1990s for a few dollars. After several more purchases, he quit his job working on a space project for US Defence to travel the world buying and selling meteorites. He became the Indiana Jones of meteor?ite hunters, and has been bitten by a poisonous spider and held at gunpoint in the course of his adventures.

Elliott has sold meteorites to customers worldwide, including celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Uri Geller. He recently sold part of his vast collection at auct?ion for just under ?120,000.[8]

Spanish student Bruno Bertullo, 16, was using the computer in his bedroom at his grandmother?s home in Sparkhill, Birmingham, when he saw a ball of fire zoom past the window. In the garden he found an odd fist-sized rock that was covered in holes.

?I tried to touch it, but it was very hot so I ran back into the kitchen to fetch the tongs. I put it in some cold water and straight away the water went hot. It?s very strange. I have never seen anything like it in my life and it wasn?t in the garden before. I think it?s a meteorite. I know from listening to spacemen that meteorites look broken and their surface is full of pores ? just like this one,? said an excited Bruno.[9]

Another doubtful story came from Derrick Miller, a cab-driver in Ocean City, Maryland. He was walking down the Boardwalk after his shift had finished one night in mid-December 2009 when he allegedly saw a glowing object fall from the sky and crash onto the beach in front of him.

?I was doing my usual thing and I was on the beach right in front of the Grand when I saw what looked at first like a shooting star. It crashed into the sand about 18m away from me. When I checked it out, it had made a hole in the sand about 45cm wide and about 15cm deep. Whatever it was, it was glowing red hot with sparks and fire coming from some of the holes in it,? claimed Miller.[10]

He looked at it closely but could not touch it because of the heat. Instead, he buried it in the sand and marked the location with a stick. He returned about five or six hours later and it was still warm but cool enough to pick up and handle.

The object was about 4cm long on its longest side and 2.5cm wide. Its shape was irregular and appeared to contain different types of mat?erial. It was covered with small holes around the outside and weighed 20g.

It fell during the peak period of the Geminid meteor shower on 13?14 December. Miller said that in the days before and after his discovery he noticed an increase in shooting stars, especially on the beach at night or in darker areas when he was driving his cab.

The most suspicious part of Miller?s story is his descript?ion of the small meteorite as being too hot to handle and still warm many hours later. This is incredibly unlikely, as the general consensus among astronomers is that small, stony meteorites would be cold or barely warm to touch immediately after impact.[11] Genuine meteorites, unlike Miller?s example, do not have a pitted surface. The most likely explanation would seem to be that Miller was inspired by the Geminid meteor shower to tell a tall tale after he found an odd rock when walking home.


FINALLY - A METEORMAYBE
A father and son believed an odd rock discovered in their backyard in Liberal, Kansas, was a meteorite. Chandler Harp, 10, was playing when he heard an explosion about 4.5m away. A plume of dirt and debris shot to a height of 1.5m. On the ground was a hole about 30cm deep. At the bottom of the hole was a rock about 5cm in diameter.

Chandler?s father, Lee Harp, was certain it was a space rock. ?I knew he [Chandler] had a meteorite,? he said.[12]

Don Stimpson, a biophysicist who owns the Kansas Meteorite Museum and Nature Center, commented: ?There?s no quest?ion in my mind whatsoever that what they have is a meteorite,? describing the 47g rock as ?beautiful, well-formed as it burned through the atmosphere?.[13]

So, how do you tell the differ?ence between a real meteor and a meteorwrong?
Put simply: a real meteorite should be heavier than a terres?trial rock of the same size, it should have a blackened outer layer (called a fusion crust), and it should be magnetic. Note: some terrestrial rocks are also magnetic, so this characteristic is not a guarantee that you have found a genuine meteorite. On many occasions, volcanic rocks and waste slag from factories are mistaken for meteorites.

A genuine meteorite would not have pitted holes covering the surface. If it is hot, on fire or sitting in a deep crater the likelihood is far greater that somebody is playing a practical joke than that you have discovered a real meteorite.

                                               
Received on Thu 29 Jul 2010 03:45:58 PM PDT