3 Ton Meteorite Stolen 273
morpheus83 writes "Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that thieves have stolen a three-ton meteorite from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908. The massive three tonne rock was bought to Krasnoyarsk after an 2004 expedition to the site of the so-called Tunguska event- a mysterious mid air explosion over Siberia in 1908 was 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The foundation's director Yury Lavbin claimed to have discovered the wreckage of an alien spacecraft during the expedition."
How? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is (Score:3, Interesting)
They haven't recovered anything from that blast, let alone a 3 ton meteorite.
Why you chain up your $500Million lawn ornament (Score:5, Interesting)
Martian Meteorites have sold for $85k/ounce [spacetoday.org], and this source [redsofts.com] claims $3600/troy ounce for more garden variety space rocks. This is more valuable than gold, platinum, maybe comparable to Rhodium.
So, (3tonnes = 128,602.986troy ounces)*$3600/ounce = $467 Million, just sitting around in your backyard. No chain, or Kryptonite lock, or even post-it note saying "please don't steal." Just asking for trouble from the neighbor kids, they were.
Because it would not have been a very wise idea? (Score:1, Interesting)
> to the foundation headquarters, why couldn't they have managed
> to bring back even a scrap of the supposed alien wreckage?
Because it would not have been a very wise idea?
You need to read up on the literature:
http://www.shnaresys.com/roadside/picnic/parallel
or at least watch the film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(film) [wikipedia.org]