[meteorite-list] Lorton Meteorite

From: JoshuaTreeMuseum <joshuatreemuseum_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:22:01 -0400
Message-ID: <FAE6153F08794E9C9C235C376BDCF7CF_at_ET>

The landlords got outlawyered:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/whatever-happened-to-the-lorton-meteorite-/2011/03/04/AB14tMq_story.html


By Neely Tucker, Sunday, March 20, 11:42 AM
When last we heard, Everybody's Favorite Meteorite was locked up in legal
limbo.

The oblong little rock from outer space lighted up the late afternoon sky
across Washington on Jan. 18, 2010, and rocketed into a doctors' office in
Lorton. Moving at a leisurely 200 mph, it crashed into examination room No.
2 in the Williamsburg Square Family Practice, even though it did not have an
appointment.

The startled (but unhurt) doctors, Marc Gallini and Frank Ciampi, donated it
to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, which houses the
world's largest collection of meteorites.

But then their landlords said not so fast: The 2-by-3-inch visitor from the
asteroid belt was estimated to be worth at least $50,000 on the earth-bound
meteorite market, in part because of its dramatic and well-documented
entrance. Thousands of people saw its fireball descent (the museum has a
photograph of the vapor trail), and radar sweeps documented its path across
the region.

The landlords demanded its return. Gallini said of their behavior: "It isn't
nice." Legal wrangling ensued.

We are delighted, a year later, that there is a happy ending.

The landlords eventually dropped their claims, the Smithsonian gave the
doctors $10,000 for the Lorton meteorite (its formal name) in early
February, and the physicians donated the check to the charity Doctors
Without Borders last week. Linda Welzenbach, the meteorite collection
manager at the Smithsonian, says it will soon be on public display, though
no date has been set.

"We are very happy that it's staying at the Smithsonian," Gallini says. "We
felt that where it's belonged since the beginning."

Deniz Mutlu, a member of the family that owns the building, said his only
issue with events was that "we got portrayed as the bad guys."

"All we wanted to do was donate it to a different institution (Phillips
Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire), where my wife attended school," he said.
"The doctors wanted to litigate. They had pro bono counsel. We just let it
go."

The meteorite, which existed for about 4.5 billion years floating around
between Mars and Jupiter, now spends its time in a little plastic box deep
in the Mason-Clarke Meteorite Vault in the Smithsonian. It has thousands of
other little asteroid friends, including three from Mars, to keep it
company.

Holding the Lorton meteorite with blue latex gloves, Welzenbach smiled.

"It's going to stay here where everyone can see it."

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Phil Whitmer
Received on Fri 18 Mar 2011 02:22:01 PM PDT