Monahans News
Monahans, Texas
Thursday, March 26, 1998
Meteor splinters over Monahans
HOT ROCKS - These two fragments of a meteorite that exploded through the atmosphere Sunday night fell near a group of boys playing basketball. The city of Monahans will put them on display after NASA completes testing. No one inside a house or building said they heard it.
Outside witnesses in and around Monahans did. They reported hearing what they described as a sonic boom. Some said they heard more.
Paula Tucker heard one. Others reported as many as four sonic booms.It was about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, March 22, when the booms rippled across the Ward County Seat.
One of those who heard four was Orlando Lyles. He was less than 50 feet from ground zero cooking fajitas. His children were among the ones who first found the meteorite since
dubbed Monahans '98 I.
"It was about 6:30 p.m. that the thing came down," recalls Lyles. "Kids were out playing basketball. I was outside barbecuing. We heard the boom, four booms, and we heard the
whistle. It landed in the lot between my house and Manuel Juarez's house. It just dropped."
Monahans '98 II was found by a sheriff's deputy on Monday morning on his way to work. It was embedded in the asphalt of Allen Street.
The hoopla began almost immediately. It has not subsided. Just fallen meteorites, says Everett K. Gibson are nearly unique things to study.
Gibson is a space scientist and geochemist with the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center near Houston. He was in Monahans on Tuesday, March 24, to take the space rocks back to Houston with him.
Monahans Police Capt. David Watts reports that by Wednesday afternoon, March 25, the NASA scientists already were finding things they had not known before about the rates of
radiation loss and material loss.
Gibson says the fragments of the meteor discovered in a Monahans vacant lot and in a Monahans street were stony meteorites - not the more common nickel-iron meteorites but
still common.
"The unusual thing about this find was that we don't often recover them as quickly as this," says Gibson. "There are plenty of meteorites found but most of them are not found for a long time and are not as suited for study as these."
Curiosity and wonder were the order of the day on Sunday when the rock fell in the vacant lot at Monahans.
Before the night was over, Monahans would become a mini-celebrity. The vacant lot where the meteorite fell was clogged with sightseers by the time police arrived.
Recalls Lyles of the seconds after the first meteorite fell (No one apparently noticed the second that Sunday):
"The kids ran over there and picked it up. There are seven kids, I think. I was barbecuing fajitas and I had 500 people in my yard.
". . .I called Alan Martin first thing (Martin is a newsman with Radio Station KLBO. His family and Lyles's family are friends)."
Says Martin: "When I got there I took it back from the kids. It was still warm. I put it back in its little crater in the ground. I called police. They seemed to be not taking it seriously at first."
It wasn't long until Mayor David Cutbirth was on the scene to examine the heavenly rock.
He said the kids would be honored for recovering it.
Lyles again: "If it had hit 50 feet either side it would have hit something. We were lucky in a way."
By this time Martin was making a few extra dollars with feeds to the networks.
Lyles said he and his family like to gaze at the starts through a telescope. He says they'll be looking even more intently now.
Two meteorites found here not first,
M.P. White found one 60 years ago
The two meteorites that fell on Monahans on Sunday, March 22, definitely were not the first, according to the scientific literature and NASA's Everett K. Gibson.
Gibson was in Monahans on Tuesday, March 24, to gather the two rocks (Monahans '98 I and II) in and take them back to the Lyndon B., Johnson Space Center near Houston for
analysis.
Gibson and the literature note the first meteor reported to have been found in the region was discovered near Monahans by an M.P. White in the Summer of 1938. It was called the
Monahans Meteor. It weighed 65 pounds when it was found. But by the time, the specimen was taken to a laboratory for study, the weight was down to 1.5 pounds, caused one article
said by the loss of the oxide crust formed when on its journey through the atmosphere to Earth. Monahans Meteor 1938 was discovered in the sandhills 14 miles South, Southeast of Monahans. White said he was digging and found the meteor under about a foot of sand.
Falling rocks, high prices vie for attention
Falling rocks and rising prices hammered the Monahans City Council for attention druing their regular meeting Tuesday, March 24.
The falling rocks involved the meteorites that fell on Monahans Sunday night and a scientist from the National Aeronautical & Space Administration (NASA) who wants to borrow the meteorites for scientific study.
The rising prices involved bids for expansion of city hall and municipal court space which came in higher than anticipated and were tabled for further study.
Dr. Everett K. Gibson, who was born in Seagraves and grew up in Plains and Denver City and received the first phase of his education at Texas Tech, asked the city to borrow the two meteorites for study by NASA for about 60 days. This is a rare opportunity to study meteorites that have only been on earth for 49 to 50 hours.
Gibson said he has been studying meteorites for 37 years. Most meteorites he has found have been in Antartica. Of the some 22,000 meteorites in NASA's possession, about 20,000 have come from that continent.
He noted that the type that fell on Monahans are quite common and not of any real monetary value. However, it is hoped that by studying them, it can be determined just how big of a meteorite they came from before entering the earth's atmosphere. Apparently both pieces that fell here came from the same original meteorite and there could be more in the area.
He noted that meteorites fall every day and night, about 100 tons per year.
The meteorites that fell here are about 4 1/2 billion years old, about as old as our solar system. It is not from Mars which would make it extremely rare and valuable. Gibson was one of the scientists who found a meteorite in the antartic and advanced the theory as a result of that rock that there was at one time life on Mars.
Gibson said after the examination of the Monahans meteorites is concluded, he will assist the city in any way in putting up some kind of display, incuding possibly recovering the 66-pound meteorite that fell on Monahans 60 years ago. That meteorite was found by M.P. White.
City manager David Mills said this was an administative decision to loan the rocks to NASA and gave his permission along with the council's blessing. On the bids for the city hall expansion, Mills opened the bids. Midtex of Midland bid $208,000 for the city hall portion and $95,000 for the court addition. Hawkins Construction had a lower bid of $206,552 with $81,352 for
the option.
The city had planned on spending about $150,000 for the expansion and possibly $50,000 for the court. An obviously disappointed Mills recommended the council table the bids
for evaluation and discussion with the architect, Larry Johnson of Odessa.
Johnson, who was on hand for the bid opening, said the bidding climate is not healthy right now due to all the construction going on in the area. Several companies he sought to submit bids said they had more business than they could handle.
The council agreed to table the bids.
The city leaders also approved on first reading an ordinance to close the 1700 block of South Carol, a street that is not being used. Only one property owner in the area who lives in
California, opposed the closing.Also approved was a grant application for a 50-50 match with the Texas Department of Transportation for improvements at Roy Hurd Memorial Airport. Mills reported that this would be used to extend the 9-gauge chain link fence around the airport.
The council also approved spending about $21,000 to buy a new water truck for the fire department. This will match $21,000 approved Monday by the county commissioners. The
existing tanker truck is 22-years old and has not operated right since a 2,000 gallon tank was put on it several years ago, according to fire chief Bill Riley.
Riley has found a full equipped 1989 International in Arizona that could be purchased for $42,000 with a 4,000 gallon tank.
The old truck that lost the transmission and clutch while fighting a grass fire in Grandfalls will be repaired and used for some low mileage situation, Mills said.
Under staff reports, Mills reported receiving franchise fee checks from Classic Cable of almost $16,000 and $169,870 from Texas Utilities. He also noted that 15 live oak trees have been planted at Hill Park along with some pine trees. No write-in candidates filed for election so there will be no city election this year as only the four incumbents filed for election.
