Wait for Me

On the evening of June 24, 1938, residents across Western Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio witnessed a bright meteor. At approximately six o’clock in the evening, Eastern Standard Time, a brilliant fireball streaked across the summer sky, trailing smoke and followed by loud explosions heard across the surrounding region. The event, which came to be known as the Chicora Meteor after the small Butler County town over which it exploded, was observed by thousands of people, some of whom initially believed they were witnessing an industrial explosion. Historical accounts also describe a reported injury to a cow from a falling fragment. 

Scientific investigation of the event, documented in a 1941 Smithsonian Institution report, estimated that the original object weighed hundreds of tons before it entered Earth’s atmosphere. Based on the trajectory, altitude of detonation (calculated at roughly 12 miles above the surface), and the energy released, scientists inferred that a larger mass might have survived atmospheric entry and reached the ground. Yet despite extensive searches conducted following the event, only a handful of small fragments were recovered. The Meteoritical Bulletin Database lists a mass of 303 grams for the Chicora meteorite.