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Meteorite hit woman November 30, 1954 and ruined the rest of her life

On November 30, 1954, a historic event occurred in Alabama when a meteor appeared in the Alabama sky in the morning and was seen by a Montgomery meteorologist and a radio announcer as it trailed across the pre-dawn hours with an eerie green glow.

The meteor exploded and at 2:56 p.m., a chunk went through the roof of the Hodges home and injured Elizabeth Ann Hodges as it smashed a hole in the roof above her living room, hit her radio and them bounced off her hip. Mrs. Hodges was reported to have been not feeling well and was lying on a couch in her living room when the meteor smashed through the roof and tumbled through the ceiling. She received a major grapefruit size bruise when the meteor struck her hip according to a hospital in Sylacauga but that was not the only suffering Mrs. Hodges endured from the event.

sylacauga-ann-hodges-bruise-university-of-alabama-museum-of-natural-historyAnn Hodges in hospital with bruise on hip (University of Alabama of Natural History)

Taken to Maxwell Air Force Base

So many people flocked to the Hodges house that when her husband, Eugene Hodges, returned home from work he had difficulty getting in his own home.

The meteorite was taken to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery where it was tested and identified. It measured about six inches in diameter and weighed approximately nine pounds. The inside consisted of a metallic, gray granular substance which responded to tests given for sulfide and the outside coating was a black satin appearing substance.

The next day, Mr. Hodges complained that the Air Force had no right to take the meteorite and it should be returned to him. His neighbors agreed with him. The Air Force reported that the stone would be shipped to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, for inspection and afterward returned to Mrs. Hodges.

Meteor seen across many states

The exploding meteor was reported to have been seen over the states of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. Six Tuscaloosa, Alabama citizens also stated they got a good look at the meteor as it fell. The accounts below were recorded in The Tuscaloosa News, December 1, 1954.

  • “Ernest Yeatman of No. 1 Oakwood Court, a truck driver for a soft drink concern said he was driving his truck up a steep hill from Warrior Asphalt’s plant when he saw the object, which he said seemed to be coming straight down. He described it as a white ball with a long trail of fire. As it descended, he said, the fire trail turned to smoke and then the ball disappeared. There was still sky visible beneath it when it disappeared, he said and except for the smoke, he saw nothing to indicate an explosion. Mr. Yeatman said he would have guessed it to be about five miles away. The whole episode took ‘just a fraction of a second,’ he said, although the smoke trail lingered for a few moments.”
  • “Fred Nicol, deputy circuit solicitor, was driving home to lunch when he saw the flash while going east on Tenth Street near Druid City Hospital. ‘It looked at first like a ball of fire, which all of a sudden disintegrated and poured out smoke, said Mr. Nicol. Mr. Nicol called The News office to report what he’d seen but said ‘don’t quote me unless somebody else also witnessed it. Folks might think I was just seeing things.”
  • William M. (Billy) Cochrane, 2301 Glendale Gardens, reported that he saw ‘a bright light’ in the eastern sky, followed by a ‘big puff of smoke.’ and concluded that it was the meteor.
  • “Mr. and Mrs. Howard Meigs, 36 University Circle, reported seeing the meteor as they sat in their car in front of the the Baptist Student Center on University Avenue. Mr. Megis said he saw the meteor explode and that at first it appeared to him as though it were in the neighborhood of the Bryce Hospital property. At first, he thought some University students had been experimenting with a thermite rocket. The Meigses said the smoke trail looked like an inverted ice cream cone. Mrs. Meigs, who is taking the courses in astronomy at the University, told of what she saw in class but at that time no one could identify the strange object as a meteor.”
  • “Mrs. Florence Taylor, 1204 12th Ave., said she was standing on the corner near the courthouse when she glanced up to see a very startling sight – a blaze of fire up there in the sky.”

Another piece discovered in a field

According to the Avondale Sun of 1954 (October-December), James (Julius Kempis) McKinney found a missing mass of the meteorite that hit Mrs. Hodges of Sylacauga in a field on December 1st. He took his find to George Swindel, U. S. Geologist at Sylacauga who verified his find.

Previously, there had been 60 recorded ‘close calls’ of a meteorite falling close to people and in the 1860s, and a few instances of death to animals hit by meteorites but there was no other authenticated case before 1954 of a human actually being struck by a meteorite.

Featured in Life Magazine

Mrs. Hodges was later featured in Life Magazine as being the first person ever reported being struck by a meteor. She reported that she had been napping on her couch, covered by quilts when the incident occurred.

The Hodges never fully recovered from the event and all the excitement it generated. The couple divorced in 1964. Ann Elizabeth Hodges died of kidney failure in 1972 at a Sylacauga nursing home at the age of fifty-two. The Hodges eventually donated the stone to the natural history museum in 1956.

Years later, their house caught fire and was later demolished. Today, a historical marker stands in Oak Grove near the spot of their house on the Old Birmingham Highway. (Turn east off US Hwy 231 at the Shell Station onto Highway 511. The historical marker is on the right,three-quarters of a mile)

SOURCES

  • Tuscaloosa News December 1, 1954
  • RoadsideAmerica.com
  • Film posted by The Story Behind

Discordance: The Cottinghams Inspired by true events and the Cottingham family that resided in 17th century Somerset, Maryland, and Delaware, colonial America comes alive with pirate attacks, religious discord, and governmental disagreements in the pre-Revolutionary War days of America.

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61 comments

  1. I think this is the picture that appeared in Life magazine.

  2. I remember that. I was in 7th grade.

  3. She was buried near Hazel Green, AL. I have visited her grave and made a photo of the headstone for the University of Alabama.

  4. Somebody needs to tell the female narrator that Sylacauga is pronounced “SILLA-CAH-GAH,” not “SI-LUH-CAH-GAH.”

  5. I don’t understand from the article how it ruined her life

  6. They mentioned this on Montgomery station yesterday morning. 62 years ago!

  7. I remember when this happened, and have seen the meteorite itself.

  8. I remember seeing the meteorite on display at the Field museum in Chicago in the 60’s.

  9. Roy Moore has ruined more women’s lives then the meteor

    1. What warped stream of consciousness does it take to go directly from a story about a meteorite striking a woman in her house to Roy Moore’s alleged proclivity for teenage girls? Can’t we have some apolitical “safe spaces” on the internet these days?

    2. Lena whatever happened in your little mind to innocent until proven guilty ???

    3. This story had absolutely zero to do with Roy Moore…

    4. I didn’t know about the meteor.

    5. Mike Deason good Lord I almost died.

    6. Mike Deason it has to do with ruining a woman’s life so there is a connection

    7. And how does that make you feel?

    8. Lena Han does not live in Alabama. We are seeing George Soros paid bloggers all over Alabama at present. Go home Lena. Stop meddling in our election!

    9. Lena Han you didn’t answer my question. But that’s okay…I get it…

    10. “Mike Deason it has to do with ruining a woman’s life so there is a connection”

      Look, just take your opinions to an echo chamber like HuffPo and leave the politics out of here.

    11. Ila Welsh 1 might be a lie. 4 no

    12. Darla Wheeler Edwards I did, can’t u read?

  10. Today a sample of a meteorite from a known fall sells for 1000’s a gram .

  11. strange coincidence. The day that the meteor hit Ann Hodges of Sylacauga is the same day that Sylacauga native Jim Nabors died 63 years later.

    1. That is a strange coincidence!

    2. Cabot Barden wasn’t that house over by the ole drive in

    3. Yup. it’s been gone for quite a few years now. There is a historical plaque out by the old Birmingham highway about the meteor.

    4. Yes. My granddads brother and family lived in that house. That place wanted haunted as hell.

  12. Yep. That happened just over the hill from where I sit now. There’s a nice marker in front of where the house was.

  13. Kriston Hodge Phillips are you related to these people? They have the last name “Hodge”.

    1. Our last name is Hodge. Her last name is Hodges-with an s on the end.

  14. Wanda Cantrell, our young brains were radiated !

  15. They had the meteorite on display at the Museum of Natural History at UA when I was in college

  16. Aunt Liz was moving a little slow that morning.

    1. Mike, I was born in ‘54 and was not aware this even happened till I was adult. Bless her heart. If you will forgive me for asking, I’ve wondered since reading “it ruined their lives” and studying the time frame from meteor injury to her sad death, were her medical problems natural or a result of the injury trauma?

  17. I like the fact that one of the witnesses quoted lived in my house!

  18. I lived in Chicago in the early ‘60’s and remember seeing the meteorite and these pictures in a display case at Museum of Natural History downtown. They had the cutaway section of the roof with the hole in it also. Neat story.

  19. […] about ongoing well being issues for her and contributed to the cave in of her marriage in 1964. She died of kidney failure in a neighborhood nursing house at the age of simply […]

  20. […] Meteorite hit woman November 30, 1954 and ruined the rest of her life […]

  21. The only known case of a person being hit by one.

  22. I knew the Dr. that treated this lady when meteorite hit her .

    1. Martha Ann Irby I was just wondering who the Dr. Was. My guess would be Craddock?

    2. Donna Butler Dr. Moody D. Jacobs, deceased.

    3. Peggy Johnson ok. I remember hearing about him. Dr. Craddock was the only one I could remember hearing people speak much of then. Good to learn more.

    4. Peggy Johnson Did you know Dr.Jacobs or just know your history?

    5. Yes, I knew Dr. Jacobs for many years before his passing. We attended church together- were friends with his wife also

    6. Peggy Johnson Dr. Jacobs was from Choctaw Co. Where I lived for 40 years and before we lived in Decatur. I knew him when I worked @ Decatur General.

  23. I was an infant living in Talladega

  24. Interesting timline here, first seen in the “pre dawn hours” but not crashing into the house until 2:56pm.

  25. Where exactly was this incident it never says the exact location?

  26. […] Meteorite hit woman November 30, 1954 and ruined the rest of her life, from Alabama Pioneers […]

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