gerrit blank a teenager from essen western germany claimed to have been struck by a meteorite as he was walking to school in june 2009 this claim has since been widely discredited by the scientific community as a hoaxthe schoolboy claimed that he saw a bright streak of light heading towards him the peasized meteor grazed the top surface of his left hand leaving a threeinch burn scar before striking the asphalt road surface and burning a 12inchwide 300 mm crater in the tarmac these observations are not possible and are not consistent with a true meteorite impact of this small size cf terminal velocity the worldwide reporting in the media is certainly the result of the general publics misguided perception of a typical meteorite strike largely due to the many hollywood movies overdramatisation of such meteorite fallsastronomer ansgar korte of essens walter hohmann observatory was misquoted to say its a real meteorite its very valuable to scientists in fact mr korte had not even seen the meteorite at this stage according to astronomer phil plait my friend the dutch science writer govert schilling talked to korte who is claiming he never saw the meteorite and was misquoted plait goes on to identify a number of major inaccuracies and ambiguities in the story as reportedthe german scientists quoted in the original press articles were also asked for an explanation and clarification they replied as followstypically a meteorite fall happens as described belowa piece of rock or metal from space collides with the atmosphere of our planet due to thehigh speed in the range of 30 to 80 kilometers per second the friction between atmosphereand the object from space heats the object up to shining bright glow at a height of about100 km the object begins to glow and the meteor appears in the sky at a height between 20and 40 km all the kinetic energy is depleted and the remaining object if still existing fallsfurther down to the ground like a common stone or piece of metal at this stage it has lost all of its cosmic velocity and falls to the ground in freefall no faster than if it had been dropped from an aircraft because of this longlasting flight through the atmosphere such a small object as reported in the last days hasenough time to cool down to ambient temperaturegiven these facts it appears to be very unlikely that the occasion reported a few days agowas caused by a meteoritethe only human confirmed to be struck and injured by a genuine meteorite was 31yearold ann hodges of sylacauga alabama she was struck while asleep in bed on november 30 1954 after the meteorite punched through the roof of her home smashed a wooden cabinet and then bounced off the floor and struck her in the hand and hip the meteorite which weighed about eight and a half pounds caused extensive bruising