Desert Forensics - Part Nine

What hides behind Meteorite 411? Tue 12 May 2026

Lucky guys. Source: T-34 via Does the Armor of a Tank get degraded

Even luckier than that clip suggests.

Why?

Because protective armour plate can spawn a scab:

And turn on you. Source: WORLD'S STRANGEST TANK SHELL | 76.2mm BR-350A | APHEBC Armour Piercing Simulation

Scabs are hot, fast, sharp and lethal.

So lethal that German artillery designers devoted a lot of resources to producing them:

And a lot of their alphabet. Source: after Does the Armor of a Tank get degraded

They were successful:

Scab from HMS New Zealand's armour plate. Source: Spall - Wikipedia

Viewed from the side, HMS New Zealand's scab is a flattish cone. It's slightly thicker in the centre, feathering to a knife-like edge. High temperatures melted out the scab's centre and helped release it from the armour plate. Its cooler, outer edge was simply torn away.

That tearing produced the rips that radiate out toward its edges. Their curve captures the rotation of the artillery shell.

Label the scab's centre as 'shock melt' and 'localised heat peak'. You'll thank yourself later. When the penny drops.

Cone-shaped scabs can be explained with a simple diagram:

And simple math: bang = cone. Source: after A Study of the Ballistic Performance of Lightweight Armours Against Small Arms Ammunition

Curiously, scabs have a lot in common with certain meteorites:

Lafayette Meteorite, Indiana. Source: Meteorites and Ballistics

Actually, scabs have a lot in common with quite a lot of meteorites.

From Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, Oliver Cummings Farrington, 1915, p60:

the cone-shaped or conoid is the most common and typical. The cone of such forms is usually low in proportion to its breadth

Meteorite scientists don't blame artillery for creating cone-shaped meteorites.

They blame air-resistance.

From Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations:

The forms of meteorites seem to depend chiefly on the amount of shaping which they undergo in their passage through the earth's atmosphere.

The form is evidently due to the greater exposure of the forward corners of the falling meteorite to the heat and friction of the atmosphere. These corners, as represented in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 17), are worn away more rapidly than interior portions.

Here is Fig 17:

Obviously, this is a wind-up. Source: Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations

Fig 17 explains 10-ton nickel-iron alloy cones like Mexico's Morito:

Allegedly. Source: Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, Oliver Cummings Farrington, 1915, p57

It also explains why you shouldn't put your hand out of the window of a moving car. The wind will wear you hand away.

From the edges inward.

Allegedly.

Air resistance theory also tries to explain why the Lafayette meteorite has radial streaks that look so like the radial rips you saw on HMS New Zealand's scab.

And why other meteorites also have radial streaks.

Like the Algoma meteorite.

From Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, Farrington Oliver C., 1915, p69:

Its thickness varies from about one inch near the geometric center, to knife edges at several points.

a more remarkable feature is a complete series of radial furrows extending over the surface from the center outward. These are knife-like edges from one-fifth to one-tenth of a millimeter in width at the base, separated by furrows from one to two millimeters wide. The ridges are modified somewhat in their course by the structure... but in general pursue a rectilinear direction with a slight curve to the left.

Sadly, it's more remarkable than photographable. Source: Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, p69

Unfortunately, air resistance theory doesn't explain bent edges like Algoma's

Fortunately, the arms industry does:

When rips can't quite pull it off. Source: The effect of shear strength on the ballistic response of laminated composite plates

Are there other holes in air-resistance theory?

Another hole is that aerodynamics says that as metal meteorites ablate into cones, trailing streamers from their molten former 'forward corners' should create lips around their rear edges. In the same way the rear of a car gets as dirty as the front.

So you should see traces of tendrils and lipping in the photographs of Morito, Lafayette and Algoma.

But you don't.

There's an even bigger hole in air-resistance theory:

Oh God! He's brought out The Ring. Source: Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, p75

For scale, the hole is about 60 cm (2 ft) in diameter. It's big enough for most adults to squeeze through.

This nickel-iron alloy ring-cone is 124 cm (49 in) wide, about 25 cm (10 in) deep, and despite being mostly air, it weighs about as much as six or seven adults.

It was found on a hillside close to today's US-Mexican border:

Find-site area of the Tucson nickel-iron alloy masses

Key:

Red area: Probable find area
Blue marker: Likely find site

Curiously, this exotic nickel-iron alloy ring has more names than photographs. And just as curiously, its names became less descriptive over time. What was the Signet Iron, the Ring meteorite, and several other descriptive names, eventually became 'the Ainsa-Tucson Meteorite', then just 'the Tucson Meteorite'.

A name like 'the Tucson Meteorite' suggests it is a single meteorite.

In reality, the ring was one of two medium sized nickel-iron alloy chunks found among many larger nickel-iron alloy chunks.

The other medium sized chunk had its own name: the Carleton-Tucson Meteorite. And a shape you might recognise.

From The Carleton-Tucson and Ainsa-Tucson Meteorite Masses, MW Ritter von Haidinger, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe, Band 61, 1870, p507:

It possesses "a flat, bowl-shaped or shield-shaped form"

But Carleton-Tucson was a lot more interesting than that. Which may explain why you don't see photographs of it.

And why you don't see photographs of its hard-to-explain micro-structures.

Both the Tucson ring and the Tucson bowl/shield were planted around Tucson for all to see and use. Being the same length - 124 cm (4 ft) - they were presented as public anvils. Though they were probably also used as public beer bottle openers:

Tucson ring mounted as anvil. Source: Memoir on Meteorites

Either way, the public were very familiar with their dimensions and their shapes. They likely remembered the distinctive Tucson Meteorite.

But in 1860 the Tucson Meteorite - the ring - disappeared into closed institutions. It wound up in the Smithsonian Museum. In 1862, the, Carleton-Tucson meteorite followed. It is allegedly in San Francisco's Bureau of Mines and Minerals.

As laboratories began to pore over the two artefacts - especially the Carleton-Tucson artefact - meteorite experts began to spread strange stories among the public.

Austrian scientist WM Ritter von Haidinger stepped up first, explaining in 1870 how the Tucson Meteorite came to be ring shaped. This he did by perverting both air-resistance theory and logic.

Obviously, the iron must have been drilled through, starting with a small hole that became ever wider. Until balance was achieved.

And on page 512:

The Ainsa-Tucson meteoric iron ring offers an example of an iron plate that has been drilled by air resistance.

Of course, a public familiar with manual labour, construction work and their now-missing beer bottle openers were likely to doubt the theory of "air-drilling". So American meteorite expert Oliver Farrington steered Haidinger's theory away from the ridiculous and toward the whimsical. By 1915, Farrington was proposing the Tucson Meteorite had previously contained a big stone that had fallen out.

Like an engagement ring that had lost its diamond.

And that is what today's public apparently believe. They believe meteorites are missing their stones. They also believe in air resistance theories. Despite these theories being utterly divorced from reality.

But, as with many divorces, it's the arrival of a third party that triggers the final break up.

That third party is the arms industry:

Introducing 'the Second Cone'. Source: A Study of the Ballistic Performance of Lightweight Armours Against Small Arms Ammunition

Almost all 'second cones' - technically: 'annular rings' - break up immediately after the first cone spalls away. They often crack into the long, curved shapes we associate with shrapnel.

Shapes like this:

M-21OF rocket shrapnel. Source: Shell fragment isolated - Dreamstime

The arms industry knows what forces create second cones and then turn them into jaw-shaped shrapnel.

Curiously, the meteorite industry has also catalogued many jaw shaped nickel-iron alloys.

Like this:

Kokstad meteorite. Source: The Meteorite Collection of the Imperial-Royal Natural History Court Museum on 1 May 1895, p283

And this:

Hex River Mounts meteorite. Source: The Meteorite Collection of the Imperial-Royal Natural History Court Museum on 1 May 1895, p292

And like the arms industry, the meteorite industry worked out a long time ago that jaw-shaped nickel-iron alloys are remnants of ring-shaped nickel-iron alloys.

From Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-königliche geologischen Reichsanstalt, Aristes Brezina, Nr. 15, Sitzung am 8. November 1887, p288:

Two other incomparably beautiful irons, of which one is complete and the other nearly complete, represent the final stage of bursting of a ring formation; these are the two South African irons: Kokstad, Griqualand East, found 1884, 43 kilograms heavy, and that of Hex River Mounts, Capland, found 1883, weighing 60 kilograms. Both [Kokstad and Hex River Mounts] allow, according to their form, the definite assumption that they are fragments of burst rings.

Brezina suspected 'the jaw-like Kokstad iron' had once been attached to this nickel-iron alloy pretzel:

The utterly natural-looking Matatiele Meteorite. Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum, p20

And that together they would have formed most of another hefty, ring meteorite.

Brezina's suspicion sat unconfirmed until Vagn Buchwald published more evidence for it in 1975.

While appreciating what the Hex River Mounts and Kokstad meteorites may really have been, pay attention to another characteristic the Kokstad meteorite shares with many other meteorites.

From Handbook of Iron Meteorites: Kokomo – La Caille, Vagn Buchwald, 1975:

It is difficult to understand these structural details, unless we imagine that shock melting occurred and caused a localised heat peak of short duration in the compressible sulfide phase, while only influencing the surroundings to a minor extent.

You don't have to imagine.

You don't have to understand.

You just have to watch the video at the top of the page. Or look for signs of 'shock melting' and 'localised heat peak of short duration' on the scab blasted off HMS New Zealand.

A question worth asking is: did any meteorite experts ask any arms industry experts how so many ~~nickel-iron alloy chunks~~ meteorites might have acquired their 'shock melt' and 'localised heat peaks'?

Or how these nickel-iron alloys might have acquired their exotic shapes?

Or why so many events that dumped nickel-iron alloy chunks on the ground sounded like aerial warfare?

From Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, Oliver Cummings Farrington, 1915, p14:

At the fall of Tabory, Perm, Russia, August 30, 1847, a fiery mass appeared in a clear sky... Two or three minutes later, sounds like the firing of many cannon were heard.

And at Sokobanja, Serbia, October 13, 1877:

two explosions like salvos of artillery, accompanied by a brilliant display of light such as attends the bursting of shells... The noise lasted for some time and resembled the firing of musketry.

And at New Concord, Ohio, May 1, 1860:

a strange and terrible report in the heavens... followed by similar reports with such increasing rapidity that after reaching the number of twenty-two they were no longer distinct but became continuous and died away like distant thunder.

Evidence suggests the meteorite industry did partner up with the arms industry.

Disappearing meteorites - like Tucson and many others - suggests they were partnered up by 1860. Public visibility of meteorites and meteorites as technological debris diminishes from this time.

Missing meteorites and shrinking of meteorite documentation continue through the early 20th century until it widens in 1931. At that time, the Hoba narrative and the new narrative about the origins of mega-craters is promoted to the public.

Documentary evidence of the military nature of partnership is, of course, harder to find.

However, by 1958 in the Tucson Meteorite's last known home - the Smithsonian Institution - assistant director for meteorites, John S. Rinehart, was trawling through his employer's exotic dowry and publishing technical reports - under Air Force Contract AF18(600)-1596.

One of the reasons the public doesn't associate meteorites with scabs, with artillery, with advanced technologies like Composite Ceramic Armour - and no longer associates meteorites with artillery fire in the sky - is because publications like Rinehart's Air Force Technical Report No. 8 - Meteorites and Ballistics - weren't intended for the space-rock loving public.

Meteorite research had oriented itself to altogether different ends:

Amazing things are found on Wisconsin farms. Source: Debris

Outside the hotel room door, the public are not privy to the intimate details of meteorites. Instead, they are treated to labels like 'Iron meteorite', 'Stony-Iron meteorite' and 'Stony meteorite'.

When most meteorites are either nickel-iron alloy or nickel-iron alloy variants combined with ceramic composites:

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title Iron Meteorite Composition
    "Nickel-Iron Alloy" : 95
    "Iron Sulfide (AKA Troilite, etc)" : 5

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title Stony-Iron Meteorite Composition
"Nickel-Iron Alloy" : 50
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title 'Stony Meteorite (H-group Chondrite) Composition'
"Nickel-Iron Alloy" : 17
"Silicates" : 83

The labels 'Iron' and 'Stone' hide very advanced materials.

Which is presumably why the meteorite industry still uses Farrington's 'lost stone' theory to explain the curiously circular holes found in various nickel-iron alloy meteorites.

Like the curiously circular 70mm diameter hole in Matatiela above.

And the curiously circular hole in this fragment from Arizona:

Perforated Canyon Diablo fragment. Source: Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations

These aren't bullet holes. The Canyon Diablo fragment above is big. At 99.3 kg (219 lbs), it weighs more than most men. These holes are the size of small artillery rounds.

Many meteorites show similar circular holes. Many show cylindrical holes where part has disappeared. They support ear-witness claims of hearing artillery in the sky.

And yet some meteorites are much more advanced even than armour plate and composite ceramic armours.

To help appreciate how much more advanced they are, you have to appreciate that there is more to a tank and a naval ship than armour plate. There are controls and communications and propulsion systems.

And a lot of connectivity linking them together.

Haidinger claimed to have included a photograph of Carleton-Tucson in The Carleton-Tucson and Ainsa-Tucson Meteorite Masses. But no obvious photograph of it survived into the digital version.

If that doesn't tell you the Carleton-Tucson meteorite was a very, very interesting chunk of exotic nickel-iron alloy, perhaps the intense examination it underwent in multiple laboratories will.

Descriptions of its interior talk of curved strands of olivine meeting at nodes. And of thin strips of other elements weaving through its nickel-iron alloy substrate. These descriptions go beyond hints that Carleton-Tucson was artificial. They hint at very specific, very advanced technologies. They bring to mind the micro-management of magnetic flux. In the same way a printed circuit board brings to mind the micro-management of electricity.

For a summary of its lab results, try pages 460 to 467 in Farrington's 1915 work: Catalogue of the Meteorites of North America.

Look at the attention to detail paid to the olivine structures in, say, the Brenham meteorite group, Kansas. The three tables on page 79 of Catalogue of the Meteorites of North America do not illustrate geeky fascination. They illustrate technical details being examined with forensic attention to detail.

Note the chemical analysis labelled "2. Graphite" on page 137 of Farrington's report on the Cosby Creek, Tennessee, meteorite. There is nothing natural about a composite of graphite infused with pure iron. And nothing casual about the lab's analysis of it:

Graphite = carbon. Corroded carbon fibre = carbon. Source: Inside Dyson’s Overengineered £1000 Hand Dryer

And note how the Cosby Creek nickel-iron alloy was found in curious circumstances.

From Catalogue of the Meteorites of North America, p137:

many individuals examined it in place. It was entirely insulated on the surface of the ground

You don't need test equipment to tell you that's odd:

Though it helps. Source: Debris

The Coahuila group shows the more complex the structure of a meteorite, the more likely the meteorite disappeared into a lab - dragging any existing photographs behind it.

For example, try to find imagery of these.

From A New Meteorite from Coahuila, Mexico: Nativitas Tlaxcala, HH Ninninger, p3:

many of the component plates were separating and falling away. Several hundred grams, among which were some very beautiful plates, were obtained when cleaning off the main mass for preservation.

The straight edges of these plates were separated by the usual thin, glistening plates of Taenite which in this meteorite appear unusually thin. These thin elastic sheets of Taenite had in some cases been loosened by oxidation in the disintegrated outer crust referred to above.

And from the fragments which had been preserved I was able to pick out a number of good-sized samples which were used for a careful study of this interesting component of iron meteorites.

Thin sheets of iron separated by thin insulation are an interesting component of human machines too:

Though human-made stators are less advanced. Source: Inside Dyson’s Overengineered £1000 Hand Dryer

From A New Meteorite from Coahuila, Mexico: Nativitas Tlaxcala, p3:

The thin elastic sheets are of a brassy lustre, quite flexible, and possess sufficient elasticity so that they may be rolled into a cylinder and when released return to their original form. It is quite difficult to break them by bending unless the included angle is reduced to zero. They also possess great tensil strength. By measuring nineteen of them their thickness was determined to average .034 mm. ranging from .02 mm. to .08 mm.

This is the Coahuila Iron as presented to the public today:

Boring. Source: Coahuila meteorite - Wikipedia

But try to find exhibits - or even imagery - of its exotic parts.

From Neue Meteoriten des Kaiserlich-königliche naturhistorischen Hofmuseums, Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-königliche Geologischen Reichsanstalt Kaiserlich-königliche Geologische Reichsanstalt, Aristedes Brezina, 1867, p288:

it also had two curious iron cylinders as inclusions in the remaining iron.

Those two iron cylinders do sound curious. They sound as though they were interesting enough to photograph. Or even to put on display.

Nor were Coahuila's cylinders the only iron cylinders being found on the hills of the US and Mexico.

From Memoir on Meteorites, J Lawrence Smith, April, 1854, p8:

Dr. Berlandier, writes in his journal of the commission of limits that at the Hacienda of Venagas there was (1827) a piece of iron that would make a cylinder one yard in length with a diameter of ten inches. It was said to have been brought from the mountains near the Hacienda.

That's three iron cylinders. Any more?

Brezina hinted where the public might still find a cylinder similar to the cylinders found in the Coahuila Iron.

the magnificent iron of Babbs Mill in the form of a flat-pressed cigar, a former inclusion in a huge iron block (analogous to the small iron cylinders in Coahuila iron)

Even then, you will not easily find good photographs of the Babb's Mill artefact.

Artefact retrieved in 1876 at Babb's Mill, Tennessee. Source: Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, p74

and:

Other side of Babb's Mill artefact. Source: Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien Naturhistorisches Museum, p297

Both its end parts appear to have been removed by the time these photographs were taken.

Anyway, Oliver Farrington suggested, it's probably just one of the stones so often missing from meteorites.

You can confirm for yourself whether the Babb's Mill meteorite is a stone or an artefact. Just read the descriptions that managed to escape its various lab tests:

Catalogue of the meteorites of North America, to January 1, 1909, pp 41-44
Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien Naturhistorisches Museum, p297 (you'll need German)

Or you can simply let the meteorite industry laugh at you.

From Meteorites; their structure, composition, and terrestrial relations, p74:

[Blake, who originally found it, thought] this meteorite was a residual nodule of an irregularly shaped mass from which the irregular portions had been thrown off by terrestrial weathering, but it seems quite as likely that the form was acquired in falling.

That's right. To explain the Babb's Mill Meteorite's bizarre structure, Farrington simply bequeathed the public with a third version of air-resistance theory.

Air-sanding.

It's funny.

It's stupid.

It distracts you from noticing Meteorite 411.

More of this investigation: Desert Forensics, More of this investigation: The Reformation Was a Reformatting, More of this investigation: Misunderstood Technology