After Seeing 'Huge Fireball' Fly Past Home, Man Spends 18 Months Tracking It Down & Discovers Rare Meteorite
Tony Whilding, 38, from Wrexham, North Wales has found a 2lb 4oz meteorite. The father had searched for the rock for 18 months after seeing a fireball.
A man from the UK who spent over 18 months looking for a meteorite has finally tracked it down and he thinks that the space rock could be worth ?100,000.
38-year-old Tony Whilding was on a search for 18 months for this meteorite or anything related to it after a night-time fireball flew past his house in Wrexham, North Wales.
After a vigorous search, he finally found something. After checking with experts around the world, Mr Whilding says he now believes the 2lb 4oz object, adorned with 'amazing markings' is a comet-crust meteorite.
Wales Online
It was then verified that the meteorite may be worth millions of pounds.
He told North Wales Live, ¡°I was in my back garden having a midnight cigarette when I noticed the sky lighting up above my head. ¡°I looked up to see a low-flying ball of fire with two swirling trails of smoke.
¡°It got brighter as it approached my house at about twice its height. It was so low you could have kicked a football in the air and it would have reached it. As it crossed over, it extinguished within a few seconds. There was no noise, it just disappeared, leaving only the trials of smoke.¡±
Wales Online
Over the past 18 months, Whilding kept walking on the path where the fireball had emerged. He kept running home with all sorts of rocks but didn't quite find the right one. But when he found the meteor, he posted his sighting the next day on an online register of fireballs.
He said, ¡°It was in a cornfield that had been ploughed, which is probably why I didn¡¯t see it before,¡± he said. ¡°It was covered in dry mud. When cleaned, it had a white fusion crust, a bit like glass. The rock had two tones with white crystalline streaks - but it definitely wasn¡¯t quartz.¡±
ScienceMag (Representational Image)
The London¡¯s Natural History Museum expressed an interest but as the UK was in lockdown, Tony never took it further. However, a US expert who examined Mr Whilding photos suggested the rock appeared to be a comet-crust meteorite, ruling out an 'inner solar system meteorite' due to its distinctive dimpling. He said this is usually from 'gaseous voids' left after cooling down from atmospheric entry.
Still, even the origin wasn't quite found Whilding keeps the rock in his side table so that it reminds him of that night when the fireball appeared.
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