The Only Woman Who Ever Got Hit By a Meteorite

Imagine going about your day like the people in Russia only to be smacked against a wall by a meteorite’s shockwave. That’s already crazy. But imaging being in your home, napping on your couch and actually getting hit by an actual meteorite. That actually happened to Ann Hodges in 1954. She survived.

In the only confirmed account of a person getting struck by a meteorite, Ann Hodges was left with just a large bruise after the softball-sized meteorite broke through her ceiling and bounced off a radio before it thumped her on her thigh. After all of the people who have ever lived in this world and after all the meteorites that have hit Earth, she’s the only one to have ever been hit. Amazing.

It’s especially funny to look back in time. Most people said the meteorite, which hit Hodges in Sylacauga, Alabama, was like “a fireball, like a gigantic welding arc” but others assumed it was the work of the Soviets. After it was confirmed to be a meteorite, there was a big hodgepodge over who actually owned the meteorite.

Hodges eventually gained possession of the meteorite and though she survived being struck by the space rock in 1954, she passed away in 1972 at the age of 52 because of kidney failure. [National Geographic]