A man in Michigan had used a “rock” as a doorstop for 30 years to hold his heavy barn door open. He knew it was a meteorite – the farmer who sold him his house in the 1980s had told him that he and his father had seen it hit ground in the 1930s and dug it out of its crater when it was still warm. But the man didn’t think much of it, until a fireball hit Michigan last January. He then got to thinking, and brought the rock to Central Michigan University’s geologist Mona Sirbescu to have it analyzed.
It turned out to indeed be a meteorite, and a valuable one at that, worth over $100,000.
The Smithsonian as well as a museum in Maine are thinking about purchasing it.