[meteorite-list] Mifflin, Amiss

From: Stuart McDaniel <actionshooting_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 8 May 2011 12:47:42 -0400
Message-ID: <2EF64C679A6D42B993B762EDEA716359_at_StuartMcDaniel>

Sounds like someone owes me a Mifflin replacement since I have a piece of
this rock from Carl myself!!!


Stuart McDaniel
Lawndale, NC
Secr.,
Cleve. Co. Astronomical Society
IMCA #9052
Member - KCA, KBCA, CDUSA
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Catterton
Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2011 4:07 AM
To: Shawn Alan ; jasonutas at gmail.com ; Linton Rohr
Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Mifflin, Amiss

Ok. I cant keep this quite anymore... Screw the lies and secrets. I think
the truth should be out there.
About Joes "awesome" stone...

He told me personally and we also talked over email about it... he found it
on the same persons property that someone else had already stolen a stone
from.

Yes, I know this because he told me directly. No second hand BS.

He lied to everyone and even had a totally BS story published about his
finding it under a bridge.

So please, before anyone else goes to say how Joe fed his family, took a
trip to disney world and what not, he lied about finding it and thats the
true story behind the "Kerchner Stone"
Yes, his family ate, but what about the person whos land it fell on? Ask her
how her family trip to disney went...

Joe, sorry man, but it had to come out at some time.

I took public one person who stole material from Mifflin, anyone else care
to out the other? I dont know the whole story, so I will let others tell
that tale. I know many on this list know of Joes lie and also the other
person... but I honestly doubt ANYONE will come forward on this.


Greg Catterton
www.wanderingstarmeteorites.com
IMCA member 4682
On Ebay: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/wanderingstarmeteorites
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WanderingStarMeteorites


--- On Sun, 5/8/11, Linton Rohr <lintonius at earthlink.net> wrote:

> From: Linton Rohr <lintonius at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Mifflin, Amiss
> To: "Shawn Alan" <photophlow at yahoo.com>, jasonutas at gmail.com
> Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Sunday, May 8, 2011, 3:29 AM
> Ahoy there, Jason, Shawn and list.
> Intriguing situation, Jason. Thanks for sharing.
> And like you Shawn, I'm glad I got my beautiful little
> slice from Joe. I didn't see all that much "drama" in it,
> though. He put in a lot of work, and found enough to be able
> to both keep some and sell enough to feed his family. That's
> just plain cool, in my book. Thanks Joe!
> Linton
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shawn Alan" <photophlow at yahoo.com>
> To: <jasonutas at gmail.com>
> Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2011 8:38 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Mifflin, Amiss
>
>
> Jason and Listers,
>
>
> This is a very interesting post in the since I have to say
> something doesn't add up. One an anonymous finder contacts
> Carl and has him send cash to a PO box..... Red flag. Two
> the phone number is disconnected..... Three the transaction
> was done in cash. I have to say with those three elements
> this would have to be a scam, someone got had. If this was a
> legit sale wouldn't it have been done in the correct ways
> via pay pal not some undercover 007 style, sending cash in
> the mail to a PO BOX?
>
> As for testing goes, cant Carl Agee do a terrestrial age
> analysis and also have a cre done which can prove or
> disprove this theory that someone is suggesting that Mifflin
> has two litholgies, which I have to say isnt the case and
> that these stones are not related to Mifflin in anyway from
> the evidence presented by Jason.
>
> Now the question is who was the scammer. I have to assume
> that one this scammer knew what they were doing and somehow
> was or is connected to the meteorite collecting world or
> they are really smart and picked up how to scam meteorite
> hunter 101. First of all they knew of Carl, two they knew of
> the fall, three, they knew of what a freshly fallen
> meteorite looks like and four the meteorite in question is a
> real meteorite but not from the same fall.
>
> I think the scammer is one of us or is connected to one of
> us just because of the circumstances of the event and that
> the meteorite is a real meteorite and has fusion crust. If
> it was a non meteoritest, I think it would have been a
> stone, but this was not the case it was a real meteorite in
> the mists of being a fake Mifflin. This is to good to be
> done by some non meteorite collector but again people are
> getting smarter these days to make some cash. But this means
> that this scammer would have to buy a real meteorite to turn
> around to sell as a fake recent meteorite fall.
>
> All I can say is if I came into this situation I would have
> thought the sale would have been a scam right from the start
> with me sending money to a PO box. Also I am glad I didn't
> buy this stuff I was able to buy some from Joe Kerchner
> which that had some drama in its self as well.
>
> My 2 cents
>
> Shawn Alan
> IMCA 1633
> eBaystore
> http://shop.ebay.com/photophlow/m.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [meteorite-list] Mifflin, Amiss
> jason utas jasonutas at gmail.com
> Sat May 7 21:12:16 EDT 2011
>
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> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Hello All,
>
> My story begins in the summer of last year. I saw some
> strange pieces
> of 'Mifflin' on ebay that I thought looked funny. People
> were talking
> about the meteorite having two lithologies, but...the
> slices and
> individuals that I saw looked 'off.' A select few looked
> like
> H-chondrites, and they had the telltale signs of wear that
> freshly-imported Moroccan falls bear: worn edges, exposed
> metal flakes
> on protruding corners (where the fusion crust had been worn
> off due to
> improper packing), etc.
>
> At the time, I did nothing but send a private email to Anne
> Black
> notifying her of my suspicions. I spoke with some other
> prominent
> list-members addressing it, and they all agreed that the
> material
> looked funny, but that nothing could be done about it given
> the
> required burden of proof.
>
> So, I sat on my hands for several months.
>
> Just over a month ago, I saw a piece of the funny-looking
> 'Mifflin' on
> ebay. It looked similar to some pieces that I remembered
> seeing on
> ebay months before, and, being an end-cut, I was able to
> see both the
> stone's funny-looking inside -- and the apparent metal
> grains on the
> stone's exterior.
>
> I used the 'buy-it-now' option to purchase the end-cut, and
> it
> arrived while Peter and I were in Morocco. When we
> returned, I
> promptly shipped the end-cut off to Tony Irving of the
> University of
> Washington; he agreed to analyze the stone posthaste.
>
> The results came back, but Tony wanted to wait until the
> probe was
> recallibrated so that he could run it again to be sure.
>
> Lo and behold, he did confirm that my end-cut was an
> equilibrated
> H-chondrite, with an olivine Fa of 18.6. For comparison,
> Chergach and
> Bassikounou both have Fa contents of 18.4 and 18.6,
> respectively.
>
> University of Madison, Wisconsin performed most of the work
> on the
> Mifflin fall. Between them and the Field Museum, over
> twenty separate
> stones were analyzed. They were all L5. Mifflin is
> classified as an
> L5, with an Fa of ~24.9 +/- 0.2.
>
> I then sent Tony the link to the ebay auction so he could
> confirm that
> the piece that he had analyzed was indeed the piece that I
> had sent
> him. He did.
>
> I purchased my end-cut from Bryan Scarborough (IMCA), who
> purchased it
> from Michael Cottingham, who purchased it from Greg
> Catterton (IMCA),
> who purchased the stone with Carl Esparza from the finder.
>
> Carl told me the following story over the phone:
> He was contacted "out of the blue" by someone hunting in
> the Mifflin
> strewn-field. According to Carl, the finder stated that he
> thought
> there was a "conspiracy against him," because no one would
> offer him
> more than $5/g. and he believed his finds were worth more
> than that.
> So, according to Carl, he then offered the finder $10/g,
> and a deal was
> struck.
>
> But...the finder asked that he not be paid via paypal or
> wire
> transfer; he wanted cash mailed to a P.O. Box.
>
> So, Carl mailed the money to the P.O. Box and the first of
> two 'Mifflin'
> stones was over-nighted to him the next day. It should be
> noted that
> Carl included Greg Catterton as his partner in this deal,
> and Greg
> sent over several hundred dollars to help pay for the
> stones.
>
> Unfortunately, as Carl said over the phone, his old
> computer recently
> died, so he lacks the name and email address of the finder,
> as well as
> the number/address of the P.O. Box to which he sent the
> money. Carl
> is also unwilling to share the bank receipt from the
> transaction which
> would prove that he did make a large cash withdrawal for
> the stones.
> I asked Carl for the finder's phone number, but he told me
> that he had
> recently tried to call the finder, himself, only to find
> that the
> number had been disconnected.
> He was unwilling to share the number with me, regardless.
>
> On the phone, Carl suggested that his source had likely
> ripped him
> off, and he said that he believed that it was the reason
> why he had
> been asked to send the money untraceably, as he did; Carl
> described
> the situation as a "typical scam."
>
> He also suggested that the stones *might* be from an
> unrelated fall -- or could be the result of Mifflin being an
> 'Almahata Sitta sort of
> fall.'
>
> I can't disprove either of those ideas, but they are
> unlikely for the
> following reasons:
>
> 1) Almahata Sitta is a unique event in the history of
> meteoritics.
> Different lithologies have been observed in many
> meteorites, but to
> have individual stones of completely different and
> unrelated meteorite
> types falling separately is unique. Out of the 1,238
> accepted
> observed falls in the meteoritical bulletin, only one has
> exhibited
> individuals that have consisted of different meteorite
> types (for
> example, H + L, Ureilite + EH, etc).
>
> And it's not that we haven't been looking for similar
> events; with
> each and every fall, multiple stones are analyzed, and the
> simple fact
> of the matter is that they are always similar...with *one*
> exception.
>
> So, Almahata Sitta is an exception. How much of an
> exception? 0.08%
> of meteorite falls are like it. Less than a tenth of a
> percent.
> Possible...but extremely unlikely. We also have to wonder
> about why
> or how this hunter managed to find the only two H's from
> the fall that
> were recognized. Over twenty other stones were studied and
> this
> finder supposedly turned up two or three that were all H's.
> It's 'funny.'
>
> The other possibility that Carl advocated is that the
> stones may actually
> have been found in Wisconsin -- and they may be part of a
> new fall that
> somehow slipped under the radar. He initially suggested
> that they were
> from the fireball widely seen across the Midwest on May
> 10th, but, at the
> time, I had paypal records from Greg that stated that he
> had sent Carl the
> money for the stones as early as April 24th.
> So we ruled out that possibility..
>
> But, I agree; the stones could theoretically have come from
> a
> different fall. The end-cut that I bought showed no visible
> signs of
> weathering. No oxide, no anything. Given the weather in and
> around
> Mifflin at the time of the fall, we can assume that the
> stones were
> picked up within a week or so of having fallen. No AMS
> reports of
> anything in the region for the given timeframe doesn't
> disprove
> anything since meteorites often fall without much ado,
> but...two falls
> in the same place *at the same time?*
> Granted, it's possible. Not very likely, though.
>
> And you've still got to wonder about why no one else found
> any
> H-chondrites while looking for Mifflin. It's not like
> meteorites were
> laying thickly on the ground. Everyone who found stones out
> there put
> considerable time into hunting -- and they all found only
> L5's. So if
> Carl's source were telling the truth, and he did find the
> stones, it
> seems best to assume that he wasn't hunting in the Mifflin
> strewn-field, because, if he were, he would 1) probably
> have found
> L5's, and 2) other people would probably have found H's as
> well.
>
> The conclusion I draw from this is that the truth has
> become
> well-hidden. What is certain is that I have been refunded
> by
> Bryan, and I know for a fact that Bryan has been refunded
> by
> Michael Cottingham, who has in turn been refunded by Greg
> Catterton.
>
> What I have heard, however, is that Carl has been defending
> the
> legitimacy of his stones, and is refusing to refund Greg
> Catterton.
>
> Regardless of whether the material is Mifflin or another
> meteorite
> (from Wisconsin or from NWA -- it doesn't matter), the
> simple fact
> of the matter is that the material sold by Carl has been
> shown to be
> different from how it was advertised, and as such, he
> should be
> willing to accept its return for a refund. If he wishes to
> get it
> analyzed and sell it to others as a new meteorite, that is
> his
> concern.
>
> I am fairly certain that Bryan, Michael, and Greg
> unknowingly sold the
> material as Mifflin, believing that it was indeed what they
> sold it
> as.
>
> That is my 2 cents.
>
> Regards,
> Jason Utas
>
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Received on Sun 08 May 2011 12:47:42 PM PDT