Hodges Meteorite

The Day the Meteorite Fell in Sylacauga Copyright, John C. Hall September 14, 2010 The 1954 fall of the Sylacauga meteorite, the only instance of a person being injured by a meteorite in modern times, was a truly unique event. Though the details are becoming hazy, it is still within the memory of many living Alabamians. A quick tour of the web to refresh our memories is dismaying, because nowhere does there seem to be a detailed, much less an authoritative, summary. In fact, many of the accounts are brief and inaccurate.

One detailed story, from the Augusta [GA] Chronicle2 contains an incredible fourteen factual errors in the first three sentences. But this is one of Alabama’s best true stories, so it’s time to see if we can get it Mayor Ed J. Howard, Ann E. Hodges & Chief W. D. Ashcraft looking at meteorite.1

straight.

Sylacauga was hardly a unique, or even a very exciting, place on November 30, 1954, and Ann Elizabeth Hodges was a most unlikely candidate to be singled out by fortune. But shortly after lunch on that pretty blue Tuesday afternoon, the sky fell on her.

The 34-year old woman had a headache, and covered by two quilts, was napping, sleeping on her right side on the living-room couch. Abruptly awakened by pain and noise, she leaped up and a black, grapefruit-sized rock fell from the couch onto the floor. Her mother,

Hodges house, 1954. Odens Mill Road, Oak Grove Community, Sylacauga, near the Comet Drive-In Theater. 3

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

2

Ida Franklin, sewing in the next room, thought the gas heater had exploded and rushed to help.

The living room was covered with dust and splinters and the big Philco console radio was damaged. Daylight shone through a hole in the ceiling and Ann clutched her injured hand and side. They wondered if someone had thrown the rock into the house, or if it was a piece of an airplane. (The police thought it might be a rock blasted from a nearby quarry.) Mrs. Franklin rushed outside to see who the assailant was, but saw only a black smoky cloud in the sky. Ann called the police.

Meanwhile, the rest of Alabama and Mrs. Hodges was hard-pressed to cope with the excitement. Her swollen left hand is apparent.4

much of Georgia was also noticing that something odd was happening. An Air Force

pilot reported an explosion high over Montgomery and estimated its height at 60,000 feet. Television viewers in Montgomery reported interference. Seventy-one miles away at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, R.O.T.C. cadet Donald Lovelass saw a bright reddish light like "a Roman candle" trailing white smoke in the east. Other Alabamians, especially in the eastern part of the state, saw a fireball, “like a gigantic welding arc� and recalled several tremendous explosions in the sky, with a white or brownish cloud. Some reported red-hot sparks. Little Bill Field of Sylacauga was outside hanging up laundry with his mother. His eye was drawn to the sky by the noise, and he tugged her skirt and made her look too. In Sylacauga, the sudden noise almost knocked another child off his bike. The light was even reported in Greenville, Mississippi. Since it was a clear day, there were a number of planes in the sky and a loud explosion and a cloud of smoke made many assume it had something to do with the aircraft. So compelling were the reports of aerial phenomena, the Air Force Rescue Squadron from Maxwell field took to the air in search of a downed aircraft.

Sylacauga Chief of Police W.D. Ashcraft, already out looking for the cause of the aerial explosion, responded to the call to the Hodges residence. He was accompanied by Patrolman (later Captain) Neal Denny. Ashcraft quickly realized that the hole in the roof was more than vandalism.

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

3

Ashcraft called the Mayor, Ed Howard. Later, Howard called young Dr. Moody Jacobs to treat the painfully injured Ann Hodges. Jacobs examined Mrs. Hodges but she would not go to the office for xrays until her husband got home. (Moody later x-rayed her and determined that while painful, her swollen hand and bruised hip weren't seriously injured.)

Chief Ashcraft knew that the Air Force was interested in anything from space, so he and Mayor Howard took the meteorite for safekeeping. Howard summoned the best authority he could find – U.S. Geological Survey geologist George Swindel, who was doing field work at a nearby quarry. Swindel examined the object, went and got a reference book and examined it again, this time testing it with acid (it gave off a sulphurous odor). He identified the object as a probable meteorite.

The word soon spread through the small town, and the curious were quick in arriving. Late that afternoon, Ann's husband, utility worker Eugene Hulitt Hodges, returned home. He worked as a crew boss for a utility

A more composed Ann Hodges, some weeks later. 5

company contractor, setting poles and clearing right-of-way and had been working near Alexander City all day. His crew had heard the noise, but dismissed it as dynamiting. He knew nothing about the incident until that evening, when an acquaintance on a Sylacauga street corner shouted, “Hodges, you better hurry home, something fell through your house and hit your wife!”

Mr. Hodges, not knowing what was going on and fearing the worst, had to park his car down the street and walk to the house, only to find some 200 reporters and curiosity seekers wanting to interview the sudden celebrity. The house was surrounded with cars and people, all demanding to tour the house and see the rock. Hodges said that the shy Ann was in pain and “real upset.”

Traffic jams extended for several blocks. The author’s father, Cody Hall, then a reporter for the Anniston Star, was one of the many journalists who covered the story. "I went down to Sylacauga thinking I was covering a plane wreck," he recalled, "But it was just like a circus by the time I got there."

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

4

Some were even lined up on the porch waiting to get in. Hodges, a direct, private man, was furious. “I had to push my way in,” said Hodges, “It was worse than a ball game!” He strode to the door, and when someone in the line told him to wait his turn, Hulitt pushed him off the porch.

“We had a little excitement around here today, a meteorite fell through the roof!” Said Mrs. Hodges. To Eugene’s irritation, the rock had been confiscated by the Air Force.

Meanwhile, the widespread reports of smoke and noise in the sky led authorities in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia to assume there had been an airplane accident and dispatch some forty searchplanes to find the supposed crash site. News of the fall of the "black stone" quickly spread to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. The early nineteen-fifties, with its unprecedented threat of atomic bombs, super-weapons and the Communist Menace, had recently presented Americans with the first flush of flying saucer hysteria. The Air Force, under orders to confiscate any items from space, sent officers from Maxwell Field in a helicopter that landed on the lawn of the high school, an impressive event in itself in those days.

That afternoon, Sylacauga Mayor Ed Howard turned the rock over to the military authorities who whisked it away to the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for "analysis." The Air Force showed it to their specialists, who seem to Mrs. Hodges, Dr. Moody Jacobs in the Sylacauga hospital.6

have done the same thing George Swindel did took one look at it and quickly identified it as a

meteorite and not a piece of spacecraft.

The next evening, to protect Ann Hodges from this unprecedented avalanche of publicity, Dr. Jacobs checked her into the Sylacauga hospital for five days. Eugene Hodges says the phone never stopped ringing and that the confusion “went on like that for weeks.” To quiet the clamoring press, it was decided to allow one photograph and interview. The husband and wife team representing Life Magazine was the obvious choice. When the reporter asked Mrs. Hodges if she was badly injured, Dr.

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

5

Jacobs himself pulled the sheets back to show the large bruise on Ann’s hip, and the photographer snapped the famous picture that appeared in the December 13, 1954 issue.7 The Air Force forwarded the quicklybecoming-embarrassing-and-not-a-piece-ofspacecraft to the Pentagon. Such was the publicity and criticism of the Air Force’s highhandedness in stealing the poor lady’s rock that Alabama Congressman Kenneth Roberts intervened. An Air Force General delivered the meteorite to his office where a Smithsonian curator examined it Huel Love, the Hodges’ Talladega attorney, had entered the picture on December 1 and correctly told the Hodges not to do anything

Roberts’ office, 12-9-10. L-R, Congressman Kenneth Roberts, Hodges Attorney Huel Love (pointing out Sylacauga) and Air Force director of legislative liaison, General Joe Kelly.8 hasty, as the meteorite was likely to be valuable. He spent several days tracking the rock down, then on December 8, secretly slipped off to Washington to fetch it from Congressman Roberts. Love got back to Sylacauga late that night, arriving at the Hodges house about 11:20 p.m. He showed it to the Hodges, Eugene Hulitt Hodges and wife Ann examine the returned meteorite on December 9, 1954.9

the first time that Eugene Hodges had seen it.

“Lord have mercy!” shouted Eugene

Hodges, “Let me put my hands on that thing!” Mrs. Hodges didn’t want anything to do with it and urged Love to carry it home for safekeeping.

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

6

In Alabama the rock became the focus of a highly public legal wrangle. The problem was that the Hodges didn't own the house; they were renting it from Mrs. Birdie Guy. Mrs. Guy, recently widowed, did not like the intrusion of the public and the attention given to her tenants and she quickly alienated the press. Her attorney, Charles McKay, advised her that

Hodges attorney Huel Love, meteorite and daughter Paige at his Talladega home, possibly 12-10-54.10

legal precedent held that meteorites were the property of the landowner. So, with a damaged house to repair and rumors of the supposed great worth of the meteorite, she sued for possession of the rock.

The Hodges threatened to counter-sue for Ann's injuries. "Suing is the only way she’ll ever get it. I feel like the meteorite is mine," Ann said, "I think God intended it for me. After all, it hit me!" The public, on the side of the pitifully stricken Mrs. Hodges, was outraged - surely the wonderful object that hit the poor lady belonged to her! Love locked the rock in his safe, where it stayed, except for photographs, until its ownership was established in February of 1956.

Mrs. Hodges, at home, holding the meteorite. Arrow marks entry point of meteorite.11

Letters poured in asking for samples or offering to buy it outright. Some

correspondents sent tracts and epistles connecting the meteorite, flying saucers and religion. Many fans of Mrs. Hodges sent angry letters or cartoons to the Hodges, Mr. Love and the newspapers vilifying Mrs. Guy. One letter pointed out that the rock belonged to Ann "since God gave it to her direct" and

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

7

that "the landlord had better be careful lest God send her one of her own..." Birdie Guy didn’t deserve the bad names, but her prickly nature did not endear her to the public.

A legal battle ensued in which the forces of popular opinion (the Hodges and Huel Love) defended against the forces of legal precedent (Mrs. Guy and her attorney, Charles McKay).

Eventually, cooler heads prevailed and on September 22, 1955, they settled out of court. For $500 Mrs. Guy gave up her claim on the meteorite to Mrs. Hodges. Nevertheless, McKay found enough precedent that it still seems to have settled the question of who owns fallen meteorites—the landowner.

Curiously, not until 1979 did Mrs. Guy ever actually see the meteorite. She visited the Alabama Museum of Natural History and was photographed holding the "rock" for People Magazine—by the same husband and wife team that covered the original story.

Landlady Birdie Guy in People Magazine in 1979.12

In this day of 15-minute fame, it is hard to understand how

unprepared the shy Mrs. Hodges was to deal with the barrage of turmoil and publicity.

Accompanied by her mother, Ann was persuaded to go to New York to appear on Gary Moore's TV quiz show "I've Got A Secret." The publicity had been such that she didn't fool the panel long but she won the whole $80 anyway. Her life story appeared in the Sunday magazine supplement of many

Ann & Birdie cartoon submitted by the public.

13

newspapers.14 Asked how she felt about being the first human being ever to be struck by a meteorite, Mrs. Hodges said, “I felt bruised.” Stories about her, many with factual errors, appeared in national

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

8

newspapers, magazines and on television. All present day internet sites, even further from the events of 1954, are mostly disfactual.

Letters poured in asking to be given the whole meteorite, or pieces for good-luck charms souvenirs. Huel Love had publicity photographs made by a local photographer, Van Blankenship, which he tried to sell for the Hodges.

Mr. Hodges, once Mrs. Hodges’ trip to New York in December 1954.

15

he had gotten the curiosity

seekers chased out of his yard, felt that his fortune was made. He received various offers, but couldn’t accept any while ownership of the rock was unsettled. The Smithsonian Institution sent a representative, Mr. Stuart H. Perry, who, with a superior air, made what Hodges considered an inadequate offer.

Hodges refused it.

The McKinney Meteorite Initially overlooked in the excitement was the discovery of a second fragment of the Sylacauga meteorite. On December 1, the day after the fall, a black farmer, 60 year old Julius Kempis (“J.K.”) McKinney, his son and grandson were hauling a load of firewood in a wagon. The mule shied from an object lying in the road and would not go any closer. McKinney thought it might be a snake but only found a black rock that he threw off the road. (It may have been that the fresh meteorite smelled of sulfur.) Later he went back and retrieved it. Hearing about the Hodges meteorite, he showed it to the postman, who told the City Clerk, who told George Swindel that there was another meteorite. The geologist confirmed it and with the help of attorney Charles Cleveland, McKinney was able to sell it to the Smithsonian’s Mr. Perry (possibly still smarting from Mr. Hodges' refusal) for a "handsome sum", enough to purchase “a house and a car.” Perry gave the meteorite to the Smithsonian, and Mr.

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

9

McKinney was probably the only major figure in the entire story to claim a satisfactory ending to the affair.

Hulitt Hodges claimed other bids for the rock as high as $5,500, but the bad publicity and indeterminate ownership caused the withdrawal of the largest offer. Besides, Ann Hodges was reluctant to sell the meteorite. Not knowing how to bargain with fame and the media, she realized little profit from the incident that made her famous. She estimated that her expenses were about $3,000. Once it was established that the meteorite was the Hodges’, attorney Huel McKinney family and the second fragment of the Sylacauga Aerolite. L-R: Callie W. McKinney, grandson Wayne Madden, J.K. McKinney, and James McKinney.17

Love returned it to them. The Hodges, now living in a different house and not

knowing what to do with the rock, considered using it as a doorstop. By March of 1956, they had quite enough publicity. At the urging of George Swindel, Huel Love and the State Geologist, Dr. Walter B. Jones (and with her husband’s reluctant approval) Ann donated the famous meteorite to the Alabama Museum of Natural History where it still on display.

Sylacauga Aerolite The Hodges Meteorite, technically the Sylacauga Aerolite, is one of two known fragments of a meteorite that fell in the Oak Grove community, near Sylacauga, Talladega County, Alabama on November 30, 1954 at approximately 12:47 CST. McKinney Meteorite on exhibit in Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.16

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

10

Probably with an initial weight of several hundred pounds, the meteorite entered the atmosphere from the southeast, over Montgomery. It took approximately 40 seconds to penetrate the atmosphere, producing a prominent fireball visible for more than 200 miles and three distinct explosions. Since the meteoroid was traveling through space at an estimated speed of thirteen miles per second, the shock of encountering the atmosphere fractured it while still at a high altitude and much of its mass was vaporized. A few fragments, burned black, survived and

Hodges Meteorite and damage to the Philco radio at the Alabama Museum of Natural History, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.19 slowed to a less self-destructive speed. The larger piece still had the energy to penetrate an asphalt-shingled wooden roof, graze a rafter and a ceiling joist, burst through a tongue-in-groove wooden ceiling, fracture a strong laminated wood radio cabinet and still do considerable injury to a person protected by clothing and two quilts.

The loud noise, assumed by most to be the explosion of the meteorite, was actually the sonic boom

The McKinney meteorite as illustrated in the scientific journal, Meteorics.18

produced by the object(s), going faster than the speed of sound. The different colors of smoke reported

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

11

probably stemmed from seeing the dust trail variously lit by the sun - the cloud was probably white.

Some observers noted three separate trails.

The recovered fragments are of a Class H4 Olivine Bronzite Chondrite - a stony meteorite with greater than average concentrations of iron and nickel in the form of chondrules—spherical crystal droplets indicating that they were formed in weightless space. The weight of the Hodges fragment is about 8-1/2 pounds. The McKinney fragment, which fell about 2 miles to the NNE, weighs about 3-3/4 pounds.

Other fragments may have reached the ground, but given the rural character of the area, were never recovered. They would probably be weathered and unrecognizable today. A persistent rumor of a third fragment remains unverified, despite a determined search effort by the author’s astronomer colleague, Hal Povenmire.

The Hodges meteorite is on permanent display at the Alabama Museum of Natural History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The McKinney fragment is on display in the Hall of Meteorites at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Its label does not mention Microphotograph of Hodges meteorite thin-section showing spherical chondrules.20

its more celebrated sibling in Alabama. The house, always used as a rental property, fell upon hard times and while unoccupied,

was damaged by fire on October 1, 1998. The owner, Edward Guy, had it demolished and there is no apparent trace of it remaining. In May 2010, the municipality of Oak Grove erected a roadside marker near the house site.22 Although her physical injuries healed, Ann Hodges was never able to recover emotionally from being thrust into celebrity status and later had a nervous breakdown. Eugene said, “she never did recover [from the nervous breakdown]…she was never the same person.” She and her husband separated in 1964 and both agreed that the emotional impact and disruption of the meteorite

Astronomer Harold Povenmire, the main scientific student of the meteorite. In the 1980s, he interviewed many of the figures in the incident.21

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

12

were contributing factors and that they wished it had happened to someone else. In 2005, a still vigorous Hodges reflected that it had “messed up my life for good…” and

Ann Elizabeth Hodges, about the time of her marriage in 1949.24 that his son (by a subsequent marriage) was the best thing of his life. He attended the dedication of the historical monument in 2010.

Ann Hodges' health declined and in 1972, after several years as an invalid, she died in Sylacauga. She is buried in the cemetery behind Charity Baptist Church in Hazel Green (Madison County), Alabama. Appropriately, it is a beautiful and peaceful setting. There is no

Eugene H. Hodges, still sharp 50 years later, with damaged radio and replica of meteorite in 2005. 23

note of a unique misadventure upon her stone, yet she remains the only person in modern times ever to have been injured by a meteorite.

---

Author’s Note - Things the author would like to know, see or obtain for the AMNH Hodges meteorite collection: 1. Copy of the American Weekly Sunday magazine with Ann’s story in it 2. Ebony Magazine story on the McKinneys 3. Good photo of Julius McKinney {and the mule(s)}

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

13

4. Photo of crowd at Hodges house, 11-30-54 5. Where are police photographer Harmon Mims’ negatives of the afternoon of the 30th, particularly of the room?

6. Good photo of un-cut McKinney Meteorite 7. Good photo of Hulitt Hodges as a young man 8. Reported CBS footage of Roberts, Love & meteorite in Washington 9. Photos of Huel Love and Charles McKay 10. And out of curiosity, what was playing at Comet Drive-In Theater the day of the fall?

---

Endnotes: 1

AMNH (Alabama Museum of Natural History), Harmon Mims photo.

2

Augusta Chronicle, July 5, 1998

3

AMNH, Van Blankenship photo.

4

AMNH, Harmon Mims photo.

5

AMNH, Van Blankenship photo.

6

People Magazine, 7-30-79. Jay Leviton photo. This photo, one of the series taken in 1954, differs only slightly from the photo that ran in Life Magazine, 12-13-54.

7

Reporter Joyce Leviton and her photographer husband, Jay, were the photographer/reporter team who originally did the 12-13-54 Life story and also did the 25th anniversary story for People Magazine in 730-79.

8

Photo copyright Corbis, Inc. Photographer unknown, presumably Roberts staff, perhaps CBS.

9

Birmingham News, 12-10-54. Buster Hogan photo.

10

Photograph common to several internet sites. Origin and photographer unknown.

11

AMNH, Van Blankenship photo.

12

People Magazine, 7-30-79. Jay Leviton photo.

13

AMNH Hodges File. Anti-landlady cartoon mailed to Mr. Huel Love, Ms. Hodges’ attorney.

14

Of all the documentation from the incident that has not been located, the most galling is the lack of a copy of the American Weekly Sunday supplement with Ann Hodges personal account and additional photographs (?) of the experience. Apparently the Sunday advertising and other ephemera were not saved, even on microfilm.

15

AMNH Hodges File.

16

Photo from website <<www.meteoritetimes.com/Back _Links/2003/August/ Accretion_Desk.htm>>.

Note donor “Perry” in lower left corner and no mention of Hodges incident.

17

Photo: Avondale Sun, 12-20-5(?). Scans of the Avondale Sun, house newsletter of Sylacauga’s Avondale Mills, is due to be put up in its entirety on the Birmingham Public Library web site, whereupon we hope to be able to better date the photo. This poor, 3rd generation photo is actually from

Hodges Meteorite, Fall, 2010

14

a story in Ebony Magazine, but we have been (after considerable effort) unable to contact anyone in the editorial division or archive of that publication.

18

Meteorics, Volume 1, Number 2, 1954

19

J.C. Hall, photo. Note left corner of rock with crust of asphalt from house shingles.

20

AMNH. Elbert King photomicrograph.

21

J.C. Hall photo, 1994.

22

The marker is on the more-traveled road behind the property, not the angle from which most photographs show the house. The sign’s text incorrectly refers to the meteorite as a “comet.”

23

J.C. Hall photo, 2005.

24

AMNH, slide of photograph courtesy of Franklin family.