On this date in 1954, thirty-four-year-old Ann Hodges became the first modern confirmed case of a meteorite striking a human. Asleep under quilts on her sofa in her Sylacauga, Alabama home one afternoon, Hodges was hit by a grapefruit-sized meteorite that crashed through the roof and ceiling of her house, ricocheting off a large wooden radio and impacting her body, causing a large football-shaped bruise on the left side of her abdomen. When her husband returned home from work, there were so many spectators it was difficult to gain entrance to his home.
In a 2018 Wired magazine article, “The Mad Scramble to Claim the World’s Most Coveted Meteorite” they calculated the odds of a meteorite landing in a particular spot as 1 in 182 trillion. Ironically, Hodge’s house was across the road from the Comet drive-in theater.
More images at Sylacauga's meteor
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