November 30, 1954, was a very unlucky day for Ann Elizabeth Hodges. She had been feeling ill and had resigned herself to spending the day reclined on the couch. A little before three in the afternoon, something happened to her that most statisticians would agree is almost entirely impossible. In all of recorded history, this same occurrence has befallen just a handful of people, and even those accounts are sometimes suspect and potentially untrue. But we can be entirely certain that on this Tuesday afternoon in Central Alabama, an eight pound meteorite streaked through the sky, cut through the roof of Ann Hodges rented home, bounced off the radio, and struck her forcefully on the hip.
While it's bizarrely fortunate that Ann Hodges was struck by a speeding space rock and only suffered a welt on her hip, the meteorite brought mostly trouble to this small Alabama town. The meteorite itself had broken off a larger rock that had spectacularly exploded in the sky earlier that day, dazzling and befuddling the residents of three states. The Air Force had dispatched search planes to find what they assumed had been a plane crash, but after reports out of Oak Grove told the story of the woman who had been miraculously struck, they sent personnel there to recover the space debris for further study.
Hodges and her husband, Eugene, were shocked to discover their meteorite has been taken by the government and began legal proceedings to get it back. The government, probably because they'd gathered he information they needed, quickly returned it to the Hodges, who then found themselves being sued to give up the rock. Their landlady, who was no doubt dismayed at the gaping three foot wide hole in the roof she would have to pay to repair, alleged that because the meteorite had landed on her property, it was hers to keep. They went to court, and the Hodges ended up buying the rock from their landlady for the tidy sum of $500. All of this clamor to own the rock was based on the fact that collectors were interested in buying it, which by the time the Hodges had rightfully bought it and the interest in the story had died down, wasn't true anymore. After using it as a doorstop for a couple of years, Ann Hodges decided she wanted to be rid of this reminder and donated it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
The day after Ann Hodges was struck, local farmer Julius McKinney was driving his mule cart near his house when he stopped to move a large black rock out of the road. After returning home and hearing news of the woman across town, he realized how that strange rock had come to lay in the road and he returned to collect it. Working quickly and quietly, McKinney found a collector in Illinois who paid him a handsome sum for the three pound space specimen before the specter had faded. While he never revealed how much he was paid for the rock, Julius soon bought himself a new car and new home, proof that some people have the worst luck, while others can be big winners.