Meteorite hunters find what is believed to be pieces of meteorite boom

A group of meteorite hunters made their way to Utah after the meteor shot across the sky with a large boom several days ago. 

The hunters spent the past few days combing the area where it was thought the meteorite hit.

First, this group has found six rocks believed to be meteorites from Saturday’s event. Second, they won’t tell us exactly where other than we’re in the Tooele area and the rocks landed in Salt.

For 25 years, Sonny Clary has hunted meteorites.

“It’s everything. Luck, skill, science, having the drive to go out and do it,” Clary said. “They’re hitting the earth every day.”

But finding one after a witnessed fall…that’s another story. Witness fall means people saw it fall and heard it.

That hasn’t happened in Utah since 1950, in Garland.

“I’ve watched the video, and when you hear the explosion, that’s when the meteor blew up and went into fragments.”

It’s a hobby; one that brought Clary and fellow meteorite hunters here in the Tooele Valley.

“So it’s like once I saw that I’m like ‘oh my god!  I found it.”

Their treasure hunting has been a big success.

“I found a roughly 216-gram chondrite meteorite. So far, six stones are believed to be part of the 800-pound meteorite.”

When asked how big that would be, Clary said, “you figure a foot and a half round object. So dense, that when it hit the earth’s atmosphere, it exploded into hundreds of smaller pieces.”

And even though Clary says he has found hundreds of meteorites over the last two and a half decades… hunting them hasn’t lost the thrill.

“This was in outer space, this is 4.5 billion years old. It was witnessed, sonic booms, the whole event and then I have a piece,” Clary said.

Now, the stones will go to the University of Utah to be verified it’s not about selling the stones for Clary.

“The main goal is for science to share with the world,” Clary said.