In my professional life as a meteorite specialist I frequently interact with curious and friendly members of the public who believe they might have found a space rock. Authentic meteorites are about as rare a thing as you can acquire: less common than gold, diamonds, or even emeralds, so the chance of somebody stumbling across one by accident is very small indeed. But it does happen on occasion. One of the things my company does is assist people who have found, or think they have found, a meteorite.

In an average year we will receive between 800 and 1,000 such inquiries. About 0.8% of those will result in the identification of a real meteorite. In other words, somebody contacts us with a genuine find roughly every 15 months. In order to reduce the enormous amount of time we spend answering routine questions along the lines of: “Are meteorites radioactive” (no, they are not), and listening to interminable stories about how “A big meter burned down my great uncle’s barn in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ought seven,” we cleverly devised a detailed and comprehensive online guide that tells people how to determine if they have found a rock from space.

The plan backfired.

The Aerolite Guide to Meteorite Identification became such a popular and widely visited resource that we now receive more inquiries than ever. Although I do believe in the basic goodness of humanity, it amazes me how otherwise courteous and intelligent people cannot, or will not, follow the simplest of instructions. On our ID page, in big red bold capital letters, it states: “WE DO NOT ACCEPT PHONE CALLS ABOUT METEORITE IDENTIFICATION” and “THE COMPANY TELEPHONE NUMBER IS FOR SALES INQUIRIES ONLY. WE CANNOT IDENTIFY YOUR SUSPECTED METEORITE OVER THE TELEPHONE.” I go on to state, gently, that we are very busy with expeditions, research, writing, photography, television work, and so on, and would people please just email us a photo of their strange rock first. And yet, with great frequency, individuals who have clearly read that page call me anyway. Occasionally, if I am having a very bad day, I might ask if the caller has, in fact, studied the meteorite identification guide on my website. When they answer yes, I might go on to say: “And did you read the part about not calling us to ask questions about identification?” That is usually met with a stunned silence.

A genuine iron meteorite that really did fall from the sky. Photograph by Suzanne Morrison © Aerolite Meteorites

I appreciate that in the modern age of instant gratification there is an urgent need, among some, to know immediately if they have unearthed a million-dollar space rock (on the ID page it says, by the way: “Despite what you may have heard on television, or read on the internet, your meteorite is not worth a million dollars, sorry”). I will now own up and say that we are polite, nearly all of the time, and do our best to help, educate, and inform. We were all beginners once.

Yesterday, I received an email inquiry from a lady who told me that her husband had witnessed the June 23 Tucson fireball. He had seen it from so very close, she claimed, that he had felt the heat of the fireball on his skin. It sounds exciting but it is nonsense. As recently discussed in my review of the NBC miniseries Meteor, the flames from a fireball or shooting star go out miles up in the atmosphere. So, it would literally be impossible for someone to feel that heat, unless they happened to be . . . say . . . falling out of an aircraft or an experimental balloon, seven miles up in the sky, at just the precise moment that a fireball flashed by. I tried to explain this in a patient and friendly manner to the lady. When she told me that her husband had actually seen the meteorite fall to earth as well (highly unlikely), I invited her to email us a photo, which she kindly did. I inspected the picture, as did my staff geologist, who exclaimed: “What the hell is that?”

Not a meteorite!

We think it might possibly be a partially melted tile from the bottom of an old furnace or smelter, or maybe a slab of iron oxide such as hematite. The truth is, sometimes we just cannot tell what kind of rock it is from a photo—but we can tell what it is not. There is absolutely no way, in this universe, or any alternate universes we know of, that it is a meteorite.

I dutifully wrote back to the lady, told her it was not the real thing, and thanked her for her time. Shortly thereafter, I received a terse reply:

“My husband saw it land O.k! So don’t tell me it’s not a meteorite! I’ll just find another buyer!
Or take it to a museum or the center at ASU!”

So many exclamation points!

And doesn’t this just beautifully illustrate a failing within the human psyche? We are all quick to ask those who are in-the-know for free advice: friends, doctors, lawyers, plumbers and, in this particular case a meteorite specialist. But if the answer we receive is not what we want to hear, then we think: “Liar!” or “Idiot!” or “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Today it is back to business as normal in the office. A few more (and very polite, I might add) identification inquiries came in this morning. We did recently receive an example of the real thing and will be sharing that story with you at a later date. In the meantime, it is probably only about another 13 months until the next genuine space rock arrives in our mailbox.

I live outside the Tucson city limits and, as regular readers of my column already know, I take more than a passing interest in the wildlife that surrounds my house. I have seen some pretty odd things out there, but this morning’s spectacle set a new weirdness record for me. I know we all have a tendency to get a little nutty when the thermometer reaches 112F at lunchtime, but there is no excuse for the incident I witnessed this morning.

As I quietly prepared my breakfast I looked out, as per usual, upon my back garden. No surprise, it was already nearing 90 degrees by 8 am. My little fountain chortled away. A few birds staggered in dazed circles halfheartedly looking for food and shade.

Suddenly I noticed an overly large wild bunny (the normally mild and friendly Sylvilagus audubonii commonly known as the desert cottontail) racing across the middle distance in furious pursuit of an overly large and very beautiful bull snake. This was not just some sort of bizarre animal game: the bunny was out for blood. As the snake whipped across the baking sand, the rabbit managed to get the tip of the snake’s tail in his mouth and seemed to be trying to consume the reptile from the small end up.

I was so shocked by this scene that, without thinking anything through, I rushed out into the garden and broke it up. “Hey bunny!” I yelled. The rabbit stopped gnashing at the snake’s tail and looked up at me, with as angry a visage as a cottontail bunny could manage. The bull snake, cool and efficient, took full advantage of the distraction and instantaneously slithered up into an adjacent cholla tree. I admonished the bunny: “I put veggies out for you every day. What are you doing with the snake?”

Snake hides from bunny

At that moment I realized I had missed perhaps the greatest photo op of my lifetime. I shuffled inside to get the camera, but by then could only manage a few snaps of the bull snake skulking around on the cholla branches. The crazed rabbit had already taken off, perhaps hopped up on crack or bunny steroids, and no doubt searching for a mountain lion to tangle with.

You may, or may not, believe in UFOs, alien abductions, the accuracy of the Project Blue Book report, or even the Air Force. But I have it on the very highest authority that Area 51 really does exist in south central Nevada.

Welcome to Lincoln County. We are watching you!

One afternoon, several years ago I stood in the company of a number of esteemed international scientists on a barely noticeable rocky track adjacent to the so-called Extraterrestrial Highway, between Alamo and Rachel. Pointing up the track one of my colleagues stated, with all seriousness: “That road leads to Area 51. If you drive up there a little ways, men with guns will appear and tell you they will shoot you if you don’t go away.” How exciting is that!

The Logical Lizard basking on the secret road to Area 51. Photograph by Caroline Palmer.

Whether or not Area 51 truly is, or was, home to crashed alien flying saucers and the infamous “alien autopsy” I am not at liberty to say, but I don’t doubt for a minute that something is going on out there in the desert northwest of Ash Springs, Nevada. It may well just be a USAF facility for testing experimental aircraft. After all, they did have to develop the B-2 stealth bomber somewhere quiet and out of the way.

"War of the Worlds" meets "Close Encounters." Definitely my kind of place.

I spent the past few days with my friend Caroline in Las Vegas. Her all-time favorite band is Live and we had the opportunity to catch them at an intimate poolside concert at the Palazzo. I must say I do enjoy luxury in small doses. But after a couple of days indulging in the opulence of a lavish suite at the Palazzo, I felt the need to balance all that easy living with some hard time on the road.

So, we rented an SUV and headed north into the Great Basin, and no trip through the Basin is complete without a stop in the tiny town of Rachel, Nevada. Some call Rachel “The Gateway to Area 51,” but that is a bit of an oxymoron, since civilians cannot get anywhere near the place—gateway or not.

Making the secret sign. Photograph by Caroline Palmer.

The quirky and friendly Little Ale’Inn in Rachel is an absolute must-see for the serious UFO nut. The simple but lively bar/restaurant is the only joint within a day’s mule ride where you can procure hot food and cold drinks. And their little store that sells UFO paraphernalia always has some fabulous alien collectible or toy robot that insists on coming back home with me. Also, you can buy Area 51 maps there and they have their own flying saucer out front.

If you don't happen to see anything unusual in the air, you can always visit the flying saucer at the Little Ale'Inn

The Alien Research Center, a few miles closer to Vegas, is a new area addition since my last visit. Their giant metal alien statue is hard to miss, so we pulled in to check out what was on offer. We were there during opening hours, but the doors were locked up tight and despite repeated banging nobody came to let us in.

Caroline attempting to gain entry into The Alien Research Center

We definitely heard life forms inside making some very strange sounds and Caroline thought aliens might have been experimenting on them. Personally, I feel some of the area residents have already been taken over and are doing the aliens’ dirty work for them. Out there in wild and wooly Lincoln County, it can sometimes be difficult to tell who has joined up with the invaders and who is still part of the human resistance.

Nanu, nanu.

All photographs by the author unless otherwise noted. © Geoffrey Notkin. All rights reserved, copyright strictly enforced.