My nephew found a METEORITE

The above picture is of my nephew Jason...What is really strange is this is from the Lansing State Journal...

I didn't even know he lived in Michigan!!! (let alone the greater lansing area...We thought he lived in Texas!)Isn't he just a little dork!

Published December 21, 2007
[ From Lansing State Journal ]

U-M professors skeptical of man's claim he found meteorite
Planetarium wing is devoted to 'meteorwrongs'

Kristofer Karol
Special to the State Journal

OCEOLA TWP. - An Oceola Township man hopes a tiny rock will become a big find.

Jason Bliss has found what he believes to be a meteorite in the backyard of the home belonging to his fiancé's parents.

"From a geologist's aspect, this is like better than finding gold, truthfully, because it's so rare to find on Earth," said Bliss, 22.
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Bliss, who plans to pursue a degree in geology, said he found the magnetic fist-sized black rock sitting outside a firepit in August. He took it to the Livingston Gem & Mineral Society, which said it wasn't a meteorite but, undeterred, Bliss contacted professors at Alma College and the University of Michigan to discuss it.

Bliss, who, based on the rock's darkness, believes it came from the moon or Mars, had a meeting with a U-M professor to show him the rock.

"They (U-M professors) said it's most likely not a meteorite and that they had never seen anything like it before," Bliss said Wednesday afternoon.

"They're still going to run some more (tests) because they have no idea what it is."

Bliss believes the rock fell to Earth 5,200 to 5,300 years ago.

However, Matthew Linke, planetarium director at U-M's Natural History Museum, is skeptical of Bliss' find.

"I get a dozen phone calls a year on objects like this, and in my 17 years, only one has been proven to be a meteorite," Linke said. "So, the odds are not very good of it being a meteorite."

Linke said many objects believed to be meteorites are, in fact, either rocks left behind from glaciers or objects that have been burned or smelted together. There's actually a wing at the planetarium devoted to "meteorwrongs."

The fact that the rock was found at a firepit probably means it isn't a meteorite, Linke noted, adding the last meteorite fall in the state was in 1997.

Bliss acknowledges the find would be quite rare. He said there have only been 10 confirmed meteorites in the state in the past 200 years. But based on the pockmarks and streaks in his rock, he has faith that what he found could, in fact, be the real deal.

"The professors," Bliss said, "it boggles their minds on what the inside looks like because they've never seen it before."