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A massive rock smashing through the roof would give most homeowners a headache, but not when it fell from outer space.
For a casket maker in Indonesia, a meteor that slammed into his home has apparently brought him fame and fortune.
According to various reports, he turned the 33-year-old man into an instant millionaire … or did he?
British media reported this week that Josua Hutagalung sold the space rock for a whopping Rp26 billion (S $ 2.4 million).
But the man himself quashed the rumor on Wednesday (November 18), telling Detik that he sold it for 200 million rupees and got an additional 14 million rupees to repair his damaged roof.
Since then, he has distributed the money to his family, orphans and churches in his community, BBC Indonesia reported.
Although he was left with some fragments of the space rock, he sold the main 1.8 kg mass of the meteorite to an American man in Bali on August 17, who said he was buying it for research and collection purposes.
It was later resold to Jay Piatek, an avid collector in the United States for an undisclosed amount.
“If it is true (the value is) 26 billion rupees, I feel cheated. I am disappointed,” Josua told the BBC.
The discovery of the meteorite first made headlines in Indonesia in August.
Hutagalung was working outside his home in North Sumatra on August 1 when a heavy blow startled him.
The man looked around his house for the source of the noise, then realized that a rock had crashed through the tin roof, with the impact embedded 15cm deep into the ground.
After digging it up with a hoe, he shared images of the 2.1 kg meteorite on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/josua.d.hutg/posts/3262486800461547/
“When I picked it up, the stone was still warm and I brought it into the house,” he told Kompas at the time.
In addition to the one that slammed into Hutagalung’s house, a smaller meteorite landed in a rice field 2.2 km away on the same day.
Named Kolang in the Meteorite Society database, the space rock has been classified as CM1 / 2 carbonaceous chondrite, a rare variety of meteorite.
