Three-Point Landing

Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History last week exhibited an extraordinary collection of objects: a stony meteorite with a charred black surface, about the size of a military hand grenade and weighing four pounds; part of a garage roof; the steel turret top of an automobile; an automobile cushion and floor board. These things were acquired for the Museum, at a price which its officials last week refused to reveal, by Ben Hur Wilson, amateur astronomer of Joliet, Ill. They originally belonged to Edward McCain, resident of the small Illinois mining town of Benld.

On the morning of September 29, 1938, a Benld housewife, Mrs. Carl Crum, was working in her yard. Suddenly she was transfixed by a roar and a crash which led her to think that an airplane had fallen nearby. She peered in vain for smoke, wreckage, damage. Mr. McCain came home later to find that a celestial visitor had made a three-point landing on his property, about 50 feet from where Mrs. Crum was standing.

Agent Wilson's report in Science: "This meteorite penetrated the roof of a frame garage and the top of a Pontiac coupe therein, making a neat hole in the cushion of the car to the right of the driver's seat. It also broke the floor board beneath the seat, and made a slight dent in the car's muffler. The meteorite itself, however, did not hit the ground, as it had become so entangled in the springs of the cushion that it was snapped back up into the cushion by the recoil of the springs. . . .

"This occurrence is certainly unique in several respects, as we believe it to be the first authentic case of a meteorite ever striking an automobile, or for that matter a vehicle of any kind; and the first where its end course could be accurately measured from three established points penetrated in its fall. We also believe Mrs. Crum came nearest to being actually hit by a meteorite of any person on record in this country."

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