"Lost" meteor

[logmark]

Friends,

I have an interesting story I'd like to relate.

As a young boy my father and I were walking some railroad tracks that had once belonged to my grandfather. As we were passing by a certain spot my father stopped and stared around.
He told me he and his brothers had been walking in just this spot when he was my age (12+/- which would have been around 1927) when they heard a loud noise and crashing off into the woods near them. Upon exploration they came across an open spot in the tree canopy above them with broken branches and a crater beneath it.

They left for shovels and returned to uncover what they were certain was a meteor. He then went on to tell me that they had removed the meteor to an old tool shed by the railroad tracks. Upon searching about, we located the remnants of the old shed now thirty-odd years later. By tracing the boundaries of the ruin he was able to locate the corner he recalled the meteor being stored. We dug through the leaves and debris and there it was, exactly as he remembered it.

This meteor sat around in our yard for years until we lost interest in it and my father contacted universities to see if they would be interested in having it. So it disappeared
and I have no idea where it ended up (where did that meteor eventually land?) I'd love a short reunion with it along with my geologist son, but there are no family records of just where it went.

What I do know is that it landed near what was then called Hunter's Mill and was later renamed the Betty "B" Landing along the Tahaquamenon River in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The donation date would have been in the late 1950's / early 1960's. The meteor was approximately basketball sized and stoney, not iron. My only recollection was that dad (Alfred Glen Hunter) had included a number of Michigan universities in his search for interested parties, but that most had rejected his offer and that some had said it couldn't be a meteor because this sort of thing just didn't happen. One obviously did not agree and happily received this donation. (Can you imagine that happening today!)

There's the story - hope you enjoyed it. Now a question - is this nebulous trace trackable?
Do I simply hold on to the shared experience of re-finding a lost meteor, or is there info enough now-a-days to search out its current whereabouts and re-refind it for a photo op?

Jerry Hunter
logmark@comcast.net
Please use "Meteor" in subject line
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[JohnD]

Jerry
Fascinating story - lost and found, twice!
I'm sorry no one else has said so.

Neither am I a meteor hunter, but an Internet search found this page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrwizard ... eorit.html
Do you recognise any of the rocks in the display case?

That page seems to be a blog for someone using the server of the Uinivesity of Michigan.
I also find the Central Michigan University, and both have departments of Astronomy.
Could they help you find your old friend?

John

[bystander]

That page seems to be a blog for someone using the server of the Uinivesity of Michigan.
I also find the Central Michigan University, and both have departments of Astronomy.

There's also Michigan Technical University, the sponsor of this site.

[neufer]

Jerry
Fascinating story - lost and found, twice!

The heck with lost & found...why was it ignored TWICE for so long by two different groups who put forth considerable effort to find & move what must have been a very heavy (65 lb?) stone. (No one even bothered to take a picture apparently.)

Personally, I think Jerry's father was engaging his son in an old imaginative family game.

Be that as it may, it wasn't a lost meteor:

• 1) A meteoroid is a small sand to boulder sized particle of debris in the Solar System.
  
  2) The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere
  . is called a meteor, or commonly a "shooting star" or "falling star".
  
  3) If a meteoroid reaches the ground, it is then called a meteorite.

The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteōros, meaning "high in the air".

Betty "B" Landing along the Tahaquamenon River stands for "pie in the sky" IMO.

[logmark]

As for the factuality of dad's story, one would have to know his character
in order to accept it at face value - not that we Yoopers aren't above a good
practical joke now and then. He was an educator so I can't imagine him
permitting me to use that meteorite for classroom discussions were the
story a "story." You never know though... It was, indeed, quite a chore
getting that heavy load out to the car (via the Toonerville Trolley
which uses the tracks these days to transport tourists to the boats
which take them to see the Tahquamenon Falls.)

I have to admit it was silly not to have taken photos, but what can
I say - in those days it wasn't normal to have cameras laying around.

Thanks for the footwork folks,
Jerry

[JohnD]

Jerry,
Still rootling around.
As a UK resident, I don't know the geography of Michigan, but I found a report to the State of Michigan Conservation Dept. , called "Meteorites of Michigan". Pub.1968.
See: http://www.deq.state.mi.us/documents/de ... l-BU05.pdf
Do any of the rocks there ring a bell?
The author was one Vol de Chamberlain, from the Abrams Planaetarium at Michigan State U.
If s/he's no longer there, maybe someone there can help? David Batch is the current Director: dbatch@msu.edu


Also, the STATE BOARD OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF MICHIGAN published another report in 1901, entitled "Meteorites"
Report No. 0140-K
See: http://www.deq.state.mi.us/documents/de ... l-CR16.pdf Page 7.

Also, also, there is a story of another 'lost' meteorite, "The Klamath Falls Iron Meteorite" in an online copy of "The Ore Bin" from 1970.
That one was found in 1952 - nearer in time to yours, Jerry?
http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/dspac ... o2_ocr.pdf
See page 3.
But that was in Oregon.
When I found the town of Oregon, in Michigan, I thought I had struck gold but Limey ignorance had got in the way.

Hope this helps you, Jerry.
Let us know how you get on.

John

[aristarchusinexile]

Last week I read of a woman who was tapped on the shoulder by a meteorite fragment .. just a soft tap after a flash of light in the sky.