Edward McCain
The man from Benld, Illinois, whose car was pierced from roof to floor by a falling meteorite in 1938.
Key facts
- Nationality
- American
- Field
- Car owner
Edward McCain lived in the small coal-mining town of Benld in Illinois. On the morning of 29 September 1938 a stone fell out of a clear sky and struck his wooden garage, where his Pontiac coupé was parked.
The meteorite punched through the garage roof, then the roof of the car, then the seat cushion and the floor of the car. It bounced off the exhaust silencer underneath and ended up tangled in the springs of the seat. McCain found the damage soon afterwards. The stone weighed about 1.8 kilograms and was an ordinary chondrite, still covered in its dark fusion crust.
Benld is the first known case of a meteorite hitting a car. It gives a good idea of how much energy a small falling stone carries: by the time it reaches the ground it has slowed to a few hundred kilometres per hour, far less than its speed in space, but still enough to pass through several layers of wood and metal.
The meteorite and the damaged car roof were later acquired by the Field Museum in Chicago, where they are kept together. Several other meteorites have struck cars since, most famously at Peekskill in New York in 1992.
On the timeline
- 29 September 1938Benld: a meteorite hits a car