14-Year-Old Boy Smote By Meteorite

eldavojohn writes "Winning the lottery requires incredible luck and one in a million odds. So does getting hit by a falling space rock. A 14-year-old German boy was granted a three-inch scar by the gods. A pea-sized meteorite smote young Gerrit Blank's hand before leaving a foot-sized crater on the road. The boy's account: 'At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road.' Curiously, the rock was magnetic, and tests were done to verify it is extraterrestrial. The Telegraph notes the only other recorded event of a meteorite striking a person was 'in November 1954 when a grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a house, bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.' Space.com lists a few more anomalies and we discussed the probability of these things downing aircraft recently."

Comments

Not a likely story

[reginaldo]

There is no way that a meteor would only scar the boy's hand, and then leave a 'foot sized crater' in the road. The only alternative I can see is that the meteor bounced off the road and then hit the boy's hand, but that is equally as implausible.

Re:Getting smacked around by space rocks?

[snowraver1]

I would expect a huge gaping hole where his hand used to be. Possibly the meteor missed him entirely hit the ground near him, and some of the debris from the impact with the earth hit his hand.

Re:quote

[SBrach]

"If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!" -Zap Brannigan