A meteorite struck a woman in Alabama, a rare direct hit
On this day · 30 November 1954
On November 30, 1954, a space rock crashed through a roof and bruised a napping Alabama woman, the only confirmed human meteorite strike.
Just after midday on November 30, 1954, a fireball streaked over Alabama, bright enough to be seen across several states. Moments later, an 8.5-pound chunk of stone punched through the roof of a house near Sylacauga, ricocheted off a wooden console radio, and slammed into Ann Elizabeth Hodges, who was napping on her living-room couch.
The grapefruit-sized rock left a deep, ugly bruise across her hip but did not kill her. That made the 34-year-old Hodges the only person in recorded history confirmed to have been struck by a meteorite and survived.
A photograph of her side-eyeing the bruise became one of the strangest images of the space age.
The aftermath grew tangled. Her landlady claimed the meteorite, sparking a legal fight that ended in a settlement, and Hodges eventually donated the rock to the Alabama Museum of Natural History, where it remains.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
