These Rocks Are No Space Junk: Meteorite Hunters, Scientists Jockey t...
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APRIL 21, 2010
These Rocks Are No Space Junk Meteorite Hunters, Scientists Jockey to Find Specimens Potentially Worth Thousands Article
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28/11/2010 16:42
These Rocks Are No Space Junk: Meteorite Hunters, Scientists Jockey t...
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By DOUGLAS BELKIN
MIFFLIN, Wis.—On the sloping edge of a cornfield, Michael Farmer is walking fast, his belly bouncing, his blue eyes sweeping the ground in front of him. "I guarantee you there are thousands of them here," Mr. Farmer says. "You wouldn't think so because they are so spread out, but they are here." Mr. Farmer is among hundreds of professional and amateur meteorite hunters who have converged here seeking the charred remnants of a meteor that burst through the earth's atmosphere a week ago.
Podcast Mike Farmer describes his passion for meteorite hunting.
Their mission: to find a large meteorite, perhaps the size of a car engine, that can fetch as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the possibility of touching something that had been hurtling though
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space just days before. "How cool is it that you can hold something in your hand that was millions of miles on the other side of the moon three days ago," said Mr. Farmer, 38 years old, who is from Tucson, Ariz., and supports himself finding and selling meteorites. "This is pristine," he says of the meteorites, what meteors are called once they reach the Earth's surface. "This is from the beginning of time."
Matt McLoone for The Wall Street Journal
Two meteorite fragments found in Mifflin, Wis., this week.
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As the meteor hunters spread out across a 100-square-mile patch of rolling farmlands, they often come into contact, and conflict, with each other and the scientists who have also come to study the four-billion-year-old rocks.
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Meteorite collectors have been known to fork over thousands of dollars for some rare specimens found by these meteorite hunters. On his first hunting trip, Mr. Farmer found $80,000 of meteorites, he says. Today, Mr. Farmer makes about 20% of his living finding meteorites and selling them and the other
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80% brokering deals. The hunters—who are almost all men—tend to be white, middle-aged and fascinated by space since they were boys. On Tuesday, most wore at least one item of camouflage clothing and sported week-long whiskers. All spoke longingly—and unabashedly—of the meteorites they hoped to find. "To hold something that comes from the unknown, that's not of this earth," said Mike Bandli, a meteor hunter who manages a plant nursery in Washington. "I live for that." The meteor that launched the frenzy broke through the earth's atmosphere last Wednesday at 10:10 p.m. local time. It was so large and moved with such velocity that it could be seen by Midwesterners from Missouri to Minnesota. Across the tiny farm towns here in southwestern Wisconsin, the meteor blazed overhead as bright as a welder's torch, say those who saw it. Seconds later, a massive sonic boom shook the ground and rolled into a sustained, full-throated rumble. Mr. Farmer was sitting at his computer in Tucson when the first reports flickered View Full Image across his screen: "Massive meteorite Matt McLoone for The Wall Street Journal shower slams into Wisconsin," he recalls one Professional meteorite hunter Mike Farmer scans the ground Tuesday for pieces of four-billion-year-old saying. He paid $1,000 for a one-way ticket rocks on a farm in Mifflin, Wis. to Chicago, landed at O'Hare the next morning, jumped into a rented SUV and drove four hours north. Before the sun had set, he was in Mifflin and the search was on.
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There is as much competition as camaraderie among the hunters. Before the rocks cooled off last Wednesday night most had studied the Doppler radar imagery and adjusted for prevailing winds to try and figure out where the meteorites had landed. To secure the best spots, the hunters paid farmers $50 a day for sole access to their fields. The more-shrewd farmers negotiated for half of the worth of any meteors found.
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28/11/2010 16:42
These Rocks Are No Space Junk: Meteorite Hunters, Scientists Jockey t...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870376390457519644...
As meteors began to turn up, hunters cautiously traded information and jockeyed for better access to the best sites. Feuds and alliances were created and dissolved. Noses were bent out of joint and conflicting agendas bumped up against one another.
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Brokers blanketed gas stations with fliers promising top dollar for any meteorites picked up by the locals. Meantime, scientists pleaded for priority for the sake of the academy by posting their own signs promising to pay fair market value.
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Cameramen followed two men who star in a cable television show called Meteor Men adding to the circus-like atmosphere.
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Mr. Farmer bought his first meteorite, a 10 gram specimen, for $75 in 1995 when he was in college studying Spanish and Latin American history and working as a stock boy. He intended to go into military intelligence but after finding thousands of dollars in meteorites on a week-long trip to New Mexico, he says, he changed his mind. In the ensuing 14 years, he has crisscrossed the world looking for meteorites and brokering deals with museums and private collectors. He keeps his own stash in a one-ton fireproof vault in his home. If he is killed during one of his far flung journeys, he has instructed a friend on how to dispose of the contents and give the proceeds to his wife, he says.
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By Tuesday afternoon, he had found four meteorites, the largest about the size of a golf ball. He estimated the net worth would not cover expenses.
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But the big one, the meteorite the size of a car engine that would fetch him half a million dollars was out there, he said. He continued trudging up and down the corn field, eyes sweeping, hands moving.
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"If you're not out here looking, you're not going to find anything," he said.
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