A Rock From Space Has Fallen in Pestovo

In the small town of Pestovo, Novgorod Oblast, a "cosmic" event has happened. The day began like any other day.

Early in the morning Nina Mikhailovna Veselova went to get milk. Her 18-month-old dog Chuck romped alongside. Suddenly something drew the dog's attention: He began digging at the snow, barking loudly and grabbing something with his teeth. And suddenly he shook his head and squealed: the "something" was hot! No matter how Nina Mikhailovna tried to pull her pet away from the strange object, he didn't want to leave. She had to put the thing in her bag and take it with her. Some kind of rock or chunk of metal, she thought.

At home Nina Mikhailovna looked at the object and was surprised. It looked very strange and for some reason was warm, although it had been lying in a deep snowdrift. It was full of cracks and the color was hard to describe, something between brick red and black. This surprising object was flat, elongated, and about the size of a child's palm. It looked nothing like the usual stones from the neighborhood. It couldn't be a piece of meteorite, could it? she thought. And then she remembered that she had read in the Labor Newspaper that these "heavenly stones" had a large scientific value, that collectors hunted them and were ready to pay handsome sums: Nina Mikhailovna decided to hide her discovery far from prying eyes. She showed it only to us. "I'll give it to the scientists," she says, wrapping up the "meteorite" in thick paper. "Maybe our Pestovo will soon be famous all around the world?"

On January 20, 2003, a small sample arrived at the Meteoritics Laboratory of the Russian Academy of Sciences from Nina M. Veselova of Pestovo, Novgorod Oblast. An analysis determined that the sample is not a meteorite but is of terrestrial, industrial origin.