The woman who really WAS hit by a meteorite: How a grapefruit-sized space rock struck Alabama resident Ann Hodges 70 years ago – as experts dismiss claims by French ‘victim’
- Ann Hodges was 34 when a meteorite struck on the thigh and hand back in 1954
- READ MORE: Experts dismissed French woman’s claims she was also hit by one
Plenty of eyebrows were raised when a French woman claimed to have been struck by a meteorite earlier this month.
Not least because the odds of a person being hit by a space rock are estimated to be anywhere from around one in 700,000 to one in 100 trillion.
That and the fact there’s only ever been one known meteorite victim — a 34-year-old woman from Alabama who was hit by a grapefruit-sized extraterrestrial rock 70 years ago.
Well, it may be an unwanted record, but Ann Hodges remains the only person in recorded history to be struck by a meteorite after dozens of geologists rushed to dispel the unnamed French resident’s claims.
She said she had been hit in the ribs by a piece of meteorite while enjoying a coffee with a friend on the terrace of her home in Schirmeck, north-eastern France.
Painful: There’s only ever been one known meteorite victim – an Alabama woman named Ann Hodges (pictured), who was hit by a grapefruit-sized extraterrestrial rock nearly 70 years ago
Shocked: Hodges stands above the hole in the roof where a meteorite came crashing through
WHO WAS ANN HODGES?
Born: February 2, 1920
Died: September 10, 1972 (aged 52)
Lived: Alabama
Spouse: Eugene Hodges (div. 1964)
Hit by: Sylacauga meteorite
Date: November 30, 1954
Injuries: A large bruise to her upper thigh and hand
What happened afterwards?
Her husband claimed that Hodges’ health problems worsened and her behaviour changed following the incident.
Her shyness became social anxiety, and she suffered from what appeared to be PTSD.
But a number of experts saw the story go global and said it couldn’t have been a meteorite because it had irregular, spiked edges rather than being smooth like a space rock would do after melting in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Instead they said it was just a regular terrestrial rock which either fell from a roof, a plane’s wheels or was thrown by burglars to see if anyone was home.
The rock that hit Hodges, however, was most definitely a meteorite.
On November 30, 1954 she was happily napping on her sofa when an 8.5-pound, 4.5 billion-year-old space rock shot through her roof, bounced off a radio, and hit her on her upper thigh and hand, giving her a large bruise.
Her mother, who was in another room, ran to her daughter’s aid when she heard a scream.
Neither knew what had happened in the immediate aftermath, only that the house was filled with dust.
First they thought the chimney had collapsed or a space heater had ruptured, before discovering a rock on the floor and a bruise to Ann’s body.
The pair then called the police and fire department.
Shortly before the impact, a number of residents in Sylacauga reported seeing ‘a bright reddish light’ crossing the sky ‘like a roman candle trailing smoke.’
Others said they saw a ‘fireball, like a gigantic wielding arc’ and heard a large boom.
Such was the intensity of it that many thought an airplane was crashing to Earth.
Authorities were inundated with calls and expected to find a crash site, before identifying the Hodgeses house as ‘ground zero’ and discovering a hole in the roof.
It was only as they pieced together all the evidence that the penny slowly began to drop.
What later emerged is that when the meteor entered the Earth’s atmosphere, it broke apart. One fragment hit Hodges while another was discovered by a farmer several miles away.
Hodges’ husband Eugene was completely unaware of what had happened until he returned home later that day to find emergency vehicles and a crowd of people surrounding the couple’s home.
On November 30, 1954 she was happily napping on her sofa when an 8.5-pound, 4.5 billion-year-old space rock (pictured) shot through her roof, bounced off a radio, and hit her thigh
Collateral damage: This is the radio that the meteorite bounced off before it hit Hodges on the upper thigh
His wife then told him there had been a ‘little excitement’ that day.
Despite not initially requiring hospital treatment, Hodges was admitted the following day — not for the bruise, but because of the mental distress the ordeal had caused her.
Eugene would later claim that his wife’s behaviour changed in the months and years following the meteorite strike.
Her health problems worsened, her shyness became social anxiety, and she suffered from what appeared to be post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The couple divorced 10 years later.
Prior to their split, and in the immediate aftermath of the incident, Ann and Eugene spent a year locked in a bitter legal dispute with their landlady over the rights to the piece of meteorite that smashed through their house.
Although the law favoured the landlord, the public got behind Hodges and she eventually got to keep it after she and her husband agreed to pay a $500 (£389) settlement.
Disputed: A woman claimed she was hit by a meteorite while enjoying a coffee with a friend in Schirmeck, north-eastern France (shown above). However, dozens of geologists dismissed the idea that it was a space rock because of its irregular spikes. Meteorites tend to be smoother
Hodges had said of the legal wrangling for ownership: ‘God intended it to hit me. After all, it hit me!’
Unfortunately, interest in the meteorite had waned by the time Hodges and her husband had the rock in their possession.
They tried to sell it but couldn’t find a buyer, so initially used it as a doorstop before donating it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
The farmer who also had a piece of the Hodges Meteorite fall on his land had much better luck.
Julius Kempis McKinney quickly sold it to the Smithsonian while the Hodges legal ordeal was still raging, allowing him to buy a new car and a house from the proceeds.
Decades later, in 2017, a chunk of this second, smaller piece of the space rock sold at auction house Christie’s for $7,500 (£5,800).
Hodges would eventually pass away aged just 52, having struggled enormously in the spotlight of her notoriety.
She died of kidney failure in a nursing home on September 10, 1972, while her ex-husband lived until 2012.
Explained: The difference between an asteroid, meteorite and other space rocks
An asteroid is a large chunk of rock left over from collisions or the early solar system. Most are located between Mars and Jupiter in the Main Belt.
A comet is a rock covered in ice, methane and other compounds. Their orbits take them much further out of the solar system.
A meteor is what astronomers call a flash of light in the atmosphere when debris burns up.
This debris itself is known as a meteoroid. Most are so small they are vapourised in the atmosphere.
If any of this meteoroid makes it to Earth, it is called a meteorite.
Meteors, meteoroids and meteorites normally originate from asteroids and comets.
For example, if Earth passes through the tail of a comet, much of the debris burns up in the atmosphere, forming a meteor shower.
Source: Read Full Article