Cold Open

It’s 12:46 PM, on November 30th, 1954 in Sylacauga, Alabama.

Ida Franklin is washing dishes in the kitchen of her 34-year-old daughter’s home, trying to stack the plates quietly on the drain rack. Earlier that morning, Ida’s daughter—Ann Hodges—said she was coming down with a cold. After they finished lunch, Ida told Ann to take a nap on the couch and covered her with two heavy clothes. Now, Ida’s trying to help by getting on with the housework while Ann rests.

But the peaceful afternoon is disturbed by an almighty crash. Ida hears shouting from the room where Ann was napping, and in a panic, she rushes from the kitchen, opens the door… and is engulfed by a cloud of dust. Ida waves her hands to clear the air and spots Ann writhing in pain on the couch.

Ida drops to her knees at her daughter’s side and asks what happened. But Ann doesn’t know. Both the women look around the room in confusion. Sunlight is streaming through a gaping hole in the roof, near the fireplace. Ida thinks the chimney must have collapsed… but as she stands to get a closer look, she trips over a grapefruit-size rock in the middle of the floor. Ida curses and limps from the room, telling Ann she’s gonna call for help.

By the time the Sylacauga police department makes it to the Hodges’ house, the dust has cleared to reveal that the chimney is intact. The puzzled police officers conclude that the hole in the roof must have been caused by the strange, shiny black rock that Ida stumbled over. And while Ann is checked by a physician, the police chief takes the nine-pound rock away for testing. And within a few hours, a local geologist will reveal that the object that crashed through Ann Hodges’ roof is a meteorite. It struck Ann while she slept, but the quilts her mother wrapped her in, dulled the worst of the impact. And although Ann escapes her extraterrestrial encounter without serious injury, intense media attention means her life will never be the same after she’s identified as the first person to be struck by a meteorite on November 30th, 1954.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is November 30th, 1954: The First Meteorite To Strike a Person.

Act One

It’s November 30th, 1954, at a roadside in Alabama; a few moments before a meteorite will crash through the ceiling of Ann Hodges' home.

Eugene Hodges climbs a ladder that leans against a tree and pulls a sharp saw from his work belt. Eugene is a tree surgeon for the local telephone company. And it’s his job to keep branches away from the phone lines to ensure communication isn’t cut during a storm. Right now, he’s forty miles from his home in Sylacauga and already looking forward to the dinner his wife Ann will have ready for him after he’s finished for the day.

But as Eugene hacks at an overhanging branch, a bright, red light travels across the sky trailing smoke behind it. The fireball arcs across the horizon, dropping lower and lower until it disappears from view. Eugene stares at the spot where the fireball disappeared, waiting for a distant explosion or a plume of smoke. He thinks he just witnessed the last moments of an airplane as it dropped to earth. But when Eugene hears no sound and sees no smoke, he gets back to work and soon forgets all about the strange sight.

Five hours later, Eugene is driving through the streets of Sylacauga on the last stretch of his journey home when a neighbor flags him down. Eugene winds down the window and the neighbor excitedly tells him that there’s been an incident at his house: it was struck by a meteorite and his wife, Ann, was hit.

Although the neighbor reassures Eugene that Ann isn’t seriously hurt, Eugene speeds home. What he sees there shocks him. Parked cars block the street, a crowd stands outside his one-story home, and some of the onlookers carry the kind of cameras used by press photographers.

As Eugene pushes his way to the front door, several people complain that he’s skipping the line. One man tries to block Eugene’s way, telling him to wait his turn to see where the meteorite hit. But Eugene is tall, and years of wielding a saw have given him muscular arms. So he grabs the onlooker by his shirt and carries him off the porch. Then Eugene announces that he’s the man who lives here and tells the gawkers to go home, meanwhile, photographers lift their cameras and begin clicking away.

Eugene enters the house and slams the door shut, hoping to find a reprieve from the chaos. But inside isn’t much quieter. Police officers mill around in the hallway, talking amongst themselves but not doing much else to help. Eugene asks the officers where his wife is, and they point to the bedroom. Eugene finds Ann in bed and she greets him with a tired smile announcing: “We had a little excitement here today.”

When Eugene asks to see the meteorite that crashed into their house, he’s told that the chief of police took it away. Eugene spends the next few minutes trying to shoo the authorities out of his home and kicking the bystanders off his porch. And after the house is finally free of uninvited guests, Eugene tries to settle Ann, but she has a restless night.

The next day, Ann feels dreadful. Eugene takes her to the hospital and the doctors there assure them that Ann has suffered nothing more than a nasty bruise. But even being in a hospital bed doesn’t shield Ann from unwanted attention. When a photographer finds his way into the hospital, a doctor lifts Ann’s bed covers so he can take a picture of the enormous bruise across Ann’s hip and thigh - a great photo to accompany a sensational story and the photographer is sure it’ll be a good payday for him.

But the press aren’t the only ones looking to cash in on the event.

Driving his horse and cart along a dirt road on the outskirts of Sylacauga, local woodcutter Julius McKinney stops near a dense patch of undergrowth and pulls the thick grass aside.

Yesterday, Julius spotted a smooth, black rock on this dirt road and kicked it into the grass. This morning, he saw a story in the newspaper about the meteorite that struck Ann's house and when he read a description of the space rock, he realized what he kicked into the grass must be another fragment of the meteorite.

After a quick search, Julius spots the rock he’s looking for, places it on his cart, and returns home. He is hopeful someone will pay a pretty penny for the extraterrestrial object. But as a Black man in rural Alabama, Julius knows he has to tread carefully. The authorities will confiscate the meteorite if they find out he’s got it.

Julius will eventually find an intermediary to sell the meteorite on his behalf—and he will be stunned by the amount of money he is offered. The windfall will be enough to pay for a house and a car—but while his space rock will be a bonanza for the lucky woodcutter, the woman who was actually hit by the meteorite will struggle.

Act Two

It’s December 9th, 1954, at the office of Alabama Congressman Kenneth A. Roberts in Washington, DC; nine days after a meteorite struck Sylacauga.

Huel Love smiles at the camera as Congressman Roberts hands him the fragment of meteorite that hit Ann Hodges. As Sylacauga’s best lawyer, Huel understands the value of good publicity. And right now, there’s no bigger story in the country than the Sylacauga meteorite—and Huel has just succeeded in retrieving the space rock for Ann and Eugene Hodges.

Huel was hired by Eugene the day after the meteorite struck. By then, the Hodges had already received a phone call from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The museum’s bosses had heard about the meteorite and wanted to purchase it for their collection, suggesting a price of $5000—over fifty thousand today.

Eugene was eager to sell, but there was a problem—he didn’t know where the meteorite was. The police chief who took it from the Hodges’ house gave it to a geologist, but then it was seized by the US Air Force. So, Huel got to work and insisted that the air force had no right to commandeer his clients’ private property. After days of badgering, the Air Force backed down. And today, Huel is enjoying the publicity that’s followed the successful conclusion of his mission.

Huel boards an airplane to Alabama and ensures that more photographers are on the scene to capture his arrival. He hands over the meteorite to Ann and Eugene with great ceremony, a broad grin plastered on his face. But Ann does not seem thrilled at the return of the space rock.

Ever since the meteorite crashed through her roof, Ann has struggled to sleep. More than a week later, she’s still experiencing flashbacks and displays many of the symptoms now known as indicators of post-traumatic stress disorder. Though Ann and Eugene have the meteorite back in their hands, it won’t solve any of their problems.

While Eugene negotiates with the Smithsonian, he and Ann are notified that they’re being sued by their landlord, Birdie Guy. Birdie claims that since she owns the house, the meteorite that struck it belongs to her. And the Smithsonian deal is put on hold until the courts decide who is the rightful owner of the meteorite.

On the advice of their lawyer, Ann courts the media to keep the case in the news. She gives newspaper and magazine interviews. She even appears on national television show, I’ve Got A Secret, in which celebrity guests have to guess what Ann is famous for.

CELEBRITY: "Oh! I have it! I think… You’re not the lady that the meteor fell on, are you?"

But unlike the celebrities who guess her secret, Ann is quiet, shy, and hates being in the limelight. The constant media scrutiny puts more strain on Ann’s mental health. But still, she does her best in the hope that she and Eugene can turn a profit out of their troubles.

Eventually, months after the meteorite hit, the dispute between the Hodges and Birdie Guy is resolved just before it goes to court. Ann and Eugene agree to pay Birdie $500 out of whatever they make from the sale of the meteorite.

Birdie is satisfied with the arrangement—it more than covers the cost of repairing the hole in the roof. Eugene is pleased too, because he expects to make much more than $500 from his side of the deal. He contacts the Smithsonian to reopen negotiations, reminding them that they previously offered him $5000. But Eugene is stunned when the Smithsonian replies they’re no longer interested. After the deal with Eugene was put on hold, they purchased a different piece of the Sylacauga meteorite—the fragment found by woodcutter Julius McKinney.

Eugene then discovers that no one else wants to buy his fragment of the meteorite. During the months that the court case dragged on, public interest in the whole event dwindled. Ann stops receiving requests for interviews and television appearances, and people forget all about what happened in Sylacauga.

As Ann and Eugene are left to use the rock as a doorstop, hoping that a new bidder might emerge, Huel Love pressures the couple to settle their legal bill. Eugene grudgingly accepts a lowball offer for the meteorite from the Alabama Museum of Natural History. And after Eugene and Ann pay what they owe to Birdie and Huel, they have only $25 left.

But then, even once they’re rid of the meteorite, Ann continues to experience mental health problems—and will do so for the rest of her life. Ten years later, Ann and Eugene’s marriage will end in divorce. And eight years after that, Ann will die in a nursing home from kidney failure at the age of just fifty-two. Eugene will survive her by forty years, and he will always claim that Ann never recovered from the emotional trauma she suffered in the aftermath of the meteorite crash—but Ann won’t be the last woman whose sleep is disturbed by the sudden arrival of an extraterrestrial rock.

Act Three

It’s the early hours of the morning of October 4th, 2021, in Golden, a small town in British Columbia, Canada; sixty-seven years after a meteorite hit Ann Hodges.

66-year-old Ruth Hamilton suddenly wakes to the sound of a loud crash. She leaps out of bed as dust and debris shower her face. Ruth turns on the lights and dials 911 in a panic. Only when she flops back onto bed as she talks to the operator does she realize that there’s a large hole in her roof—and a melon-size rock on her pillow.

Investigators initially presume that the rock came from a nearby construction site. But the workers there assure detectives that there was no overnight blasting—though they did see a bright fireball fly overhead. Hearing this, the Canadian police send the rock from Ruth’s pillow to experts at Western University in London, Ontario. There, academics confirm that it was a meteorite that crashed into Ruth’s bedroom.

Media reports quickly draw parallels with the Sylacauga meteorite that rudely awakened Ann Hodges in 1954. But unlike in Sylacauga, the story of the Golden meteorite has a happier ending. Geologists tell Ruth that the rock has been on a collision course with Earth for over the last 470 million years. And thankfully for Ruth, the meteorite’s final destination was a few inches to the side of her sleeping head.

In contrast, the Sylacauga meteorite came to rest on Ann Hodge’s leg—and the damage it did was far greater than a bruise. The intense media scrutiny and legal drama that followed, caused lasting mental anguish, and Ann Hodges never truly recovered once she earned the dubious honor of being the first verified person to be hit by a meteorite on November 30th, 1954.

Outro

Next on History Daily. December 1st, 1955. Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Katrina Zemrak.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.