First Recorded Human Meteorite Strike Still a Wild Tale 70 Years on

Ann Hodges never intended to be famous, but in 1954 she found herself thrust into the national spotlight when her afternoon nap was interrupted by a falling meteorite.

The Alabama woman has the distinction of being the first documented case of a person being struck by a meteorite. She survived with a bruised hip.

In June, a man nearly joined her exclusive club when small space rocks pierced his roof in McDonough, Georgia, missing him by 14 feet, the reported. The fragments – from a meteorite that researchers say likely formed 4.56 billion years ago – dented his floor instead.

In the more than 70 years since Hodges was struck, her strange tale remains a source of fascination. Mary Beth Prondzinski with the Alabama Museum of Natural History, where the meteorite is on exhibit, told Busines