Monahans has out-of-this-world encounter
Paper: Pecos Enterprise
Monahans has out-of-this world encounter
By ROSIE FLORES
Officials from both NASA and the Smithsonian Institute are headed for West Texas today, to investigate the discovery of at least two rocks believed to have come from a meteorite which lit up the sky across West Texas as it fell to earth Sunday evening.
Residents across the area reported hearing a `boom' which lasted for about five seconds, and others saw a streak of light travel from southeast to northwest about 7 p.m. Sunday.
A four-inch piece of rock, believed to be a meteorite, landed about 30 yards from a group of youngsters playing basketball on the north side of Monahans, while a second, slightly larger rock, was found by a Ward County Sheriff's Deputy at a nearby site this morning.
The first rock was brought into the police station shortly after it was discovered. "We still have it here at the police department, and it has been tested for radiation," Monahans Police Captain Dave Watts said this morning.
Watts said the department was called out to the scene after a group of youngsters reported something falling from the sky.
At 7 p.m., about a dozen youngsters were playing basketball next to a vacant lot on the north side of Monahans where the rock landed. One of the youths, ranging in age from 8 to 16,
said the rock "glowed red hot," when it first landed, according to the Monahans News.
The rock was lighter in color than most of the nickel-based meteor fragments discovered over the years, and was about the size of a large fist, the News reported.
"Right now, we don't know what we're going to do with it, but the Smithsonian Institute has contacted us," said Watts.
The second rock was found this morning by a deputy driving to the location of the first one.
"It matches the first one in description, the color and everything else," said Watts.
The second rock was found about 800 feet, embedded in the roadway. "It's a little big larger than the first one, but other than that, it looks about the same," said Watts.
The deputy was driving to the location of the first one, when he spotted it, recovered it and took it in to the police department, according to Watts.
"It made a pretty good imprint in the asphalt," he said.
He added that the second rock has not yet been tested for any signs of radiation.
A woman who answered the phone at the Monahans Police Department, but declined to give her name, said the rock was about 3 inches wide. Monahans radio station KLBO reported
the charred rock was about 9 inches long and landed about 50 feet from five homes.
Monahans' meteor fragments arrived at a time when the subject has been a hot item in the news. A motion picture about an asteroid striking the Earth is due out later this year, and earlier this month reports went out world-wide that a `killer asteroid' was on a possible collision course
with the Earth in the year 2028. The report was retracted a day later after further calculations were made.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.