# Meteorite deaths **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 20, 2003, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318 "2003-05-20T09:34:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/1 "2003-05-20T09:34:41Z")
In the column [What are the chances of a huge meteor smashing us flat?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_202.html), Cecil writes: > [@](#): > > It’s estimated that a a meteor strike causing 100 or more fatalities could only occur once in 100,000 years, a striking causing more than 1,000 deaths once in every million years. If we extrapolate (which I realise may be entirely inappropriate to do), this should mean that a meteorite strike causing one fatality happens once in one thousand years. Although rare, it should happen occasionally. So, are there any recorded cases of meteorite strikes causing human deaths? ---
**Author:** ![privard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e8c25b/32.png) [@privard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/privard)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/2 "2003-05-20T10:39:50Z")
On the same topic, we’re only 95 years past a meteor (NOT a meteorite) that flattened a huge area of Siberia. The Tunguska meteor exploded in the air with a force equal to a large H-bomb. It isn’t known if anyone was killed in the area, which was extremely remote, but then again, a few hundred people spread out over hundreds of square miles of Siberia wouldn’t have been missed back then. Fatalities aside, we’re within a hundred years of an H-bomb sized meteor blast; if those are as rare as one would think, it’s a heck of a coincidence–or perhaps they’re not so rare. There’s probably almost no place on land now (aside from the antarctic) where such a large blast could occur without fatalities. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/3 "2003-05-20T11:08:56Z")
Well, the cause of the Tunguska blast is still debated, isn’t it? We don’t know what it was. What’s the coincidence you refer to? ---
**Author:** ![brantgoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@brantgoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brantgoose)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/4 "2003-05-20T21:47:56Z")
I recommend the Fortean Times magazine (and their website [www.forteantimes.com](http://www.forteantimes.com)) if you are interested in Tungusta and similar mysterious events. Forteans are a lot like Cecil: humourous, skeptical, inquisitive and open-minded but not credulous. There are several theories as to what flattened the forest in Siberia: 1. A UFO exploding 2. A meteor or comet 3. Gas seeping from the ground 4. A mini-black hole 5. A super-massive hypothetical particle 6. The UFO is a long-shot–there is no evidence of debris or radioactivity. 7. In a similar fashion, there is no known meteoritic debris–the object, if it was a conventional meteor must have completely vapourized above the ground. 8. A Russian geologist recently put this theory forward, but there isn’t a lot of evidence–where are the craters a gas explosion would have left? More research needed. 9. A mini-black hole could pass through the Earth but there should have been an exit point as well. 10. A massive hypothetical particle–this is worth researching on your own–something or other seems to have passed through the Earth at a fair clip not long ago. Its entry and exit were recorded by seismologists only a short time apart. I can’t seem to recall enough detail to find the right search words, or I would direct you to a discussion of this possibility. As for the extrapolition that one person is killed by a meteorite once every 1000 years, it sounds about right. Several people have been struck harmlessly or slightly injured by meteorites crashing through cars or roofs in the last century. A young British girl had one land harmlessly on her foot recently according to Ananova ([www.ananova.com](http://www.ananova.com)). If anybody has been killed by a meteorite in historical times, there is no record of the event–it may have been chalked up to some other cause, such as an airplane crash or a car accident. ---
**Author:** ![calliarcale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/48db29/32.png) [@calliarcale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calliarcale)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/5 "2003-05-20T22:25:58Z")
I’d just like to point out that although Cecil says it isn’t proven that an meteorite killed the dinosaurs (and he’s right), it IS known that a meteorite struck the Earth about that long ago (as near as anyone can tell), and that it was a doozy. The Chicxulub impact crater is a whopping 180-300 km in diameter. (There’s some debate over its size, mainly because it has a lot of concentric rings and it’s hard to tell which ones to count as part of the crater. Plus its buried in limestone – you can only find it by radar.) EVen if it didn’t kill off the dinosaurs, or contribute substantially to their demise, it must’ve been pretty spectacular. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/6 "2003-05-22T18:32:49Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. In a similar fashion, there is no known meteoritic debris–the object, if it was a conventional meteor must have completely vapourized above the ground. Which is why a lot of folks favor a comet over an asteroid. Comets are mostly ice, and melted ice is wholly unremarkable on this planet of ours. And the evidence you mention in point 5 for a quark nugget is pure speculation, and only marginally more informative than the Tunguska event itself. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/7 "2003-05-22T19:54:07Z")
Kindly note that Cecil has also written (separately) on [the Tungusta explosion.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030228.html) ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/8 "2003-05-22T21:33:43Z")
To address the OP: > [@](#): > > are there any recorded cases of meteorite strikes causing human deaths? [http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/perseids\_shower\_sidebar\_000809.html](http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/perseids_shower_sidebar_000809.html) > [@](#): > > Does Anyone Ever Get Hit by Meteors? > By Wil Milan > Special to [SPACE.com](http://SPACE.com) > posted: 07:00 am ET > 10 August 2000 > > In all of recorded human history, no one has ever been killed by a meteor. But there have been a number of people struck by them, as well as some who were nearly struck, along with many cases of damage to animals and property. > > Some examples… ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/9 "2003-05-23T11:22:15Z")
[Some Chinese Emperor may have been.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1918418.stm) Also, more info from [this site](http://www.uark.edu/depts/cosmo/metfaqs.htm): > [@](#): > > Has anyone ever been killed by a meteorite? > There are some old Chinese records of people being killed by falling meteorites, but there is no record of meteorite deaths in modern times. Elizabeth Hodges, of Sylacauga, Alabama, was given a terrible bruise on the side by a falling meteorite in 1954, and a young boy was struck in the head by a meteorite that had been slowed down by the leaves of a banana plant in Uganda in 1992. The Nakhla meteorite killed a dog when it fell in Egypt in 1911. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/10 "2003-05-23T11:25:29Z")
Oh and from the [National Public Observatory](http://astronomy-national-public-observatory.org/library.html?n=articles&art=9) (original article seems to have expired - this is from a Google cache): > [@](#): > > It has commonly been assumed that no human being has ever been killed by a falling meteorite. But John S. Lewis of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona in his recent book Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards on a Populated Earth has shown that this assumption is patently false. Lewis cites numerous historical accounts that indicate one or more fatalities due to meteorite falls. The earliest Biblical source is an account (Joshua 10:11) of a lethal fall of stones in about 1420 B.C., though some translators have misinterpreted the original word abhagim as hailstones. > > Chinese records indicate 10 people died from a meteorite fall in 616 A.D., an iron rain in the O-chia district in the 14th century killed people and animals, and there are three startling reports of an event in early 1490 in Ching-yang, Shansi in which many people were killed when stones fell like rain. > > On September 14, 1511, a meteorite fall in Cremona, Lombardy, Italy reportedly killed a monk, several birds, and a sheep. A 38-cm-diameter stone fell at Barbotan near Roquefort, France on July 24, 1790 that struck a hut and killed a herdsman and a bullock. And so on. > > Given the number of near misses that have occurred just in the past century, it certainly seems plausible to me that meteorite fatalities can and do occur. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/11 "2003-05-28T03:32:43Z")
Oh, well, if it says so in the Bible, it MUST be true. Sarcasm aside, I don’t think any of these are reliable sources. For a start, I don’t think that science in 1790 even recognised the existence of meteorites. A few years earlier famous French astronomer Lavoisier famously stated “A stone cannot fall from the sky because there ARE no stones in the sky” In fact, we have no reliable account of someone killed by a meteorite. This does not mean that it has never happened, just that there is no reliable proof of it happening. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/12 "2003-05-28T05:57:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by peter morris \* > **Sarcasm aside, I don’t think any of these are reliable sources. For a start, I don’t think that science in 1790 even recognised the existence of meteorites. A few years earlier famous French astronomer Lavoisier famously stated "A stone cannot fall from the sky because there ARE no stones in the sky"** But stones _did_ fall from the sky, no matter what Lavoisier said. It happens now, it happened back then and in all probability it’s been happening for the entirety of Earth’s existence. So if we have records of people dying from falling stones in 1511, then we have a reason to believe them, even if science _at the time_ didn’t. As you point out, that doesn’t mean it happened. But the fact that science at that point didn’t recognise the phenomenon doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meteorite-deaths/176318/13 "2003-05-28T19:53:28Z")
**brantgoose** > [@](#): > > 1. A massive hypothetical particle–this is worth researching on your own–something or other seems to have passed through the Earth at a fair clip not long ago. Its entry and exit were recorded by seismologists only a short time apart. I can’t seem to recall enough detail to find the right search words, or I would direct you to a discussion of this possibility. Try here: [Unexplained Sets of Seismographic Station Reports and A Set Consistent with a Quark Nugget Passage](http://www.geology.smu.edu/~dpa-www/sqm/) Pretty technical paper, but I think that may be what you were talking about.