Meteorite Wrecks Churchyard

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 199, 26 August 1935, Page 10

Meteorite Wrecks Churchyard

STUNS TWO MEN, SCORCHES ANOTHER FIREBALL THREE TIMES SIZE OF A FOOTBALL A meteorite, tearing through space at terrific speed, crashed to earth in the little village of Beeisby, near Grimsby, in a thunderstorm. In its mad career itt Stunned two men. Scorched the face of another. Burrowed through the ground. Tore up the path in the village churchyard. Shattered gravestones. Damaged masonry at the gable end of the church. Twisted the weather vane, and finally buried itself 30yds beyond the church. Air. James Main, an agricultural man ' ager, was leaving the piggeries at Beeisby with Mr Burkett, an employee, ' when the meteorite fell. I The sky darkened with amazing suddeness. There was a crack like thunder and then—like a ball of fire—the meteorite plunged into the earth a short distance away. “It fell with the noise of an explosion,” Mr Main said. “I was thrown down in one direction, Burkett in another. There was a succession of cracks immediately afterwards. For nearly five minutes wo fay there unable to speak or move. Mr Main describes the meteorite as having befen two or three time the size of a football and white with incandescence. A roadman said: “The fireball flashed past me, and my face was slightly 'scorched with the heat.’’ fi»hc: ‘‘Why' are you always playing golf?” He: “It keeps me lit.’’ She: “Fit—for what?” He: “More golf.”