| Port Orford meteorite | |
|---|---|
| Class | Pallasite |
| Country | United States |
| Region | Oregon |
| Coordinates | 42°48′N124°06′W / 42.800°N 124.100°W [1] |
| Observed fall | No |
| Found date | 1856 (claimed) |
| TKW | 28 g [2] 10–11 short tons (9,100–10,000 kg) (estimated, claimed) [3] |
The Port Orford meteorite hoax concerns a 19th-century claimed meteorite discovery near Port Orford, Oregon in 1856. The meteorite has attracted the interest of meteorite hunters, [2] with a value reported as high as $300 million. [4]
Dr. John Evans, a medical doctor and government-appointed geologist working for the United States Department of the Interior, claimed to have found a 10-ton (10,000 kg) pallasite meteorite in coastal Oregon (then Oregon Territory) on a "bald mountain" above Port Orford in 1856. Evans returned a sample to the East Coast, but he died of pneumonia in 1861 before the discovery could be corroborated. [5] [4]
It has been reported as a hoax, with modern metallurgical and other analysis showing that a 28 gram specimen [2] collected by Evans was actually part of the Imilac Chilean meteorite of 1822 and probably acquired by him in Panama on his return to the United States East Coast. [5] [6] The mountain of Evans' claimed find has been tentatively identified as Johnson Mountain from Evans' reports and field notes; surveys of the area with sensitive proton magnetometers in the 1980s failed to show evidence of a nickel-rich meteorite there. [7]
Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a large and hairy human-like mythical creature said to inhabit forests in North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Bigfoot is featured in both American and Canadian folklore, and since the mid-20th century has grown into a cultural icon, permeating popular culture and becoming the subject of its own distinct subculture.
A meteorite is a rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater.
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Port Orford is a city in Curry County on the southern coast of Oregon, United States. The population was 1,133 at the 2010 census.
The Tututni tribe is a historic Native American tribe, one of Lower Rogue River Athabascan tribes from southwestern Oregon who signed the 1855 Coast Treaty, and were removed to the Siletz Indian Reservation in Oregon. They traditionally lived along the Rogue River and its tributaries, near the Pacific Coast between the Coquille River on the north and Chetco River in the south. Lower Rogue River Athabascan tribes are a group of Athabascan tribes who were historically located in southwestern Oregon in the United States and speak the same Athabascan language, known as Lower Rogue River.
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The Siskiyou Mountains are a coastal subrange of the Klamath Mountains, and located in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the United States. They extend in an arc for approximately 100 miles (160 km) from east of Crescent City, California, northeast along the north side of the Klamath River into Josephine and Jackson counties in Oregon. The mountain range forms a barrier between the watersheds of the Klamath River to the south and the Rogue River to the north. Accordingly, much of the range is within the Rogue River – Siskiyou and Klamath national forests, and the Pacific Crest Trail follows a portion of the crest of the Siskiyous.
Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd was, according to folklore, a Welsh prince who sailed to the Americas in 1170, over three hundred years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492.
The "Great Moon Hoax", also known as the "Great Moon Hoax of 1835" was a series of six articles published in The Sun, beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel and his fictitious companion Andrew Grant.
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