Sylacauga

In 1954 a meteorite crashed through a roof in Alabama and struck Ann Hodges – the first well-documented person hit by a meteorite.

Key facts

Type

Ordinary chondrite (H4)

Fell or found

Fell (witnessed)

Year

1954 (30 November)

Country

United States (Alabama)

Mass

about 5.6 kg, in two main pieces

Official name

Sylacauga

On the afternoon of 30 November 1954, Ann Hodges was resting on her sofa under a quilt at home in Oak Grove, near Sylacauga, Alabama. Suddenly there was a tremendous crash. A dark stone the size of a large grapefruit had smashed through the roof and ceiling, bounced off a big wooden radio cabinet, and struck her on the hip and hand. Hodges was left with a large, painful bruise, but she recovered. She had become the first person known with certainty to have been injured by a meteorite.

A fireball over the South

People across parts of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi had seen a bright fireball and heard explosions. In Oak Grove, neighbours and then police, officials and reporters crowded into and around the Hodges' house. The stone was taken away by local officials and then by the United States Air Force, which was keen to check what it was at a time of great anxiety about aircraft and missiles. Scientists confirmed that it was indeed a meteorite, and it was returned. Photographs of the hole in the ceiling, and of Hodges' bruise, appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country.

Whose meteorite?

Then came a quarrel. The Hodges were renting their house, and their landlady argued that the meteorite belonged to her as the owner of the property where it fell. The case attracted national attention. It was eventually settled out of court, with the Hodges paying her to keep it. In 1956, Ann Hodges and her husband donated the stone to the Alabama Museum of Natural History at the University of Alabama, where it is displayed today. The Hodges stone weighs about 3.9 kilograms.

A second piece

The meteoroid had broken apart in the air. The next day, a local farmer named Julius McKinney came across a second, smaller stone of about 1.6 kilograms. He sold it, and it eventually found its way to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. Together the two pieces weigh about 5.6 kilograms.

What it is

The Sylacauga meteorite is an H4 ordinary chondrite. Ordinary chondrites are the most common type of meteorite to fall. 'H' stands for high iron: these meteorites contain flecks of iron-nickel metal, so they are noticeably heavy and attract a magnet. The number 4 means the rock was moderately heated in its parent asteroid, enough to change it a little but not enough to erase the tiny round chondrules that give chondrites their name. Most H chondrites are thought to come from a small number of parent asteroids in the inner asteroid belt.

How rare is this?

Being struck by a meteorite is extraordinarily rare. Although many tonnes of meteoritic material reach Earth every day, almost all of it is dust, and most larger stones fall into oceans or empty land. There are only a few reliable modern reports of people being hit, usually by small stones that have already been slowed by the air, branches or roofs. Even so, Sylacauga reminds us that meteorites are real, solid objects that do sometimes land in populated areas.

Why it matters

Sylacauga is famous partly as a human story, a quiet afternoon turned into a national news event. It also illustrates a recurring question in meteorite law: who owns a meteorite? In the United States, as in many countries, courts have generally treated a meteorite as belonging to the owner of the land on which it falls. Anyone searching for meteorites should always ask permission and check local laws first.

Ann Hodges' bruise is one of the most photographed injuries in scientific history, and her stone remains one of the best-known meteorites in the world.

Did you know?

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Sylacauga in the catalogue