http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/0667086000.jpg?t=1245180536 http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/article-1192503-054F2E95000005DC-83.jpg? http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/SNN1235HH-380_823358a.jpg?t=1245180707 http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/article-1192503-054F2E95000005DC-34.jpg? http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/_45916040_cen_meteoriteboy_03.jpg?t=1245180773
Here are some pics from this story on our young P.T. Barnum which at last count had over 100 article links on Google News. I haven't read them all, they pretty much rehash the original story with some added embellishments. Incredibly, every single story I've read makes the same misquote: Ansgar Kortem, director of Germany's Walter Hohmann Observatory, said: "It's a real meteorite, therefore it is very valuable to collectors and scientists." According to the original German article, the actual quote is: " If it's a real meteorite, it's therefore very valuable to collectors and scientists". What a difference one word makes!
It's almost as if not a single one of the journalists bothered to check the primary source story. Probably not surprising since it was in German and would require some effort to translate. More work than I'd want to do for $8 an hour (what I was offered to write for the South Bend , (IN) Tribune.)
Anyway it's a fun story to follow, and I'm curious to see how the Susan Boyle of the meteorite world ends up. Probably more like the Octo Mom narrative.
So, whaddya think, a carbonaceous chondrite, with black exterior and interior? I'm pretty sure the filled in pothole in front of the kid is supposed to be the impact crater. (LOL!)
In all the stories, mention is given to only one person saying this is a Newtonian impossibility: Darryl Pitt who is given the role of voice in the wilderness by MSNBC in one of the earlier stories.
Bad Astronomy's (Discover) Phil Plait believes that an exploding fireball increased the velocity of the pea sized stone (hasn't this theory been debunked on the List?) and that the kid's injury was from shrapnel from the asphalt crater. And he says this with a straight face! Phil got a little miffed at me for saying that no real astronomer would believe any part of this shaggy dog story.
Phil Whitmer
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