>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

If you have not gone outside much lately, you will not have noticed Northeast Oregon is absolutely crawling with meteorite hunters.

Both of them.

Yes, since the fireball came down a week ago, exploding at 5,000 feet over Tollgate and showering the area with meteorites, people have been keeping a closer eye on the sky for falling objects.

Myself, I’m not too worried. According to “The Book of Risks: Fascinating Facts About the Chances We Take Every Day,” over the course of a year we have a one in 250 million chance of being killed by something falling from the sky — or about the same odds as winning the Powerball

lottery.

We have a much better chance of being murdered (one in 11,000) or being killed in a dam failure (one in 10 million).

Many of the morning people I hang out with had the good fortune of seeing night turn into day when the meteor fell. The fireball entered the earth’s atmosphere at about 5:30 a.m. from outer space. Unfortunately, due to leg surgery I had altered my routine and was in a windowless bathroom at the time of the miraculous event.

My neighbor, who is in her 80s and therefore awake about as much as dogs are asleep — about 20 of every 24 hours — saw the whole thing. She said it lit up the entire inside of her home.

Other people reported hearing sonic booms as the meteor entered the atmosphere. I heard nothing. But then I probably had the water running and was singing “My Bonnie,” as usual, out of key.

Later that morning, on the way to work, I thought I had found a meteorite crater when driving through the five-way intersection at N and Washington. I was beside myself with teeth-rattling excitement. My car, though, was less enthusiastic. It turned out to be just a giant pothole.

One fascinating thing that turned up from the fireball was that there are professional meteorite hunters. Who would have guessed? I’ve heard of tornado chasers, who mainly cause traffic jams in humidity-intensive places like Kansas every time thunder rumbles.

I’ve thought about becoming one myself.

Now that I’ve been introduced to meteorite hunting, however, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve always been enchanted by shooting stars. Besides, meteorite hunting sounds much safer. When you get news a meteor is falling, it has already fallen. There is no need to scurry for the safety of a storm cellar. You don’t get news crawls across the bottom of your TV screen warning that a meteor is heading your way. You don’t have memories of Dorothy’s house in “The Wizard of Oz,” the allegedly sweet children’s movie that has caused most kids of my generation to cringe in fear of tornadoes the rest of their quivering lives.

Sure, a meteorite hunter will probably never witness a flying cow. And odds are against a find. An estimated 500 meteorites ranging from marble to basketball size or bigger hit earth each year but only five or six are recovered.

And Oregon, apparently, is ground zero for meteorites. The largest meteorite ever found in the United States, the Willamette Meteorite weighing 15.5 tons, was found near West Linn, a Portland suburb. If you want to see it, the meteorite, not West Linn, you need to travel to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Or you can check out the replica that stands near the Willamette Methodist Church in West Linn to remind church-goers of their good fortune of not being struck by falling objects on their way to Sunday services.

The main thing a meteorite hunter has to worry about is not God’s wrath but trespassing and a shotgun-toting farmer with a bad aim. Oh yeah, and skin cancer.

It’s true, you’re about as likely to find the impact crater, which often is about the size of a fist, as you are of seeing promises made during a presidential campaign come to fruition. So it goes.

If my wife were alive, she’d laugh at me for wanting to drive up to Tollgate to look for holes in the snow. OK, so meteorite hunting isn’t for adrenaline junkies. They’re all down in Kansas fighting for space with rapidly descending storm clouds and wind-battered TV correspondents who somehow don’t have a hair out of place.

If I don’t find a meteorite, no big deal. At least I will have a lot of elbow room on the happy hunting grounds.

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