GLENDALE, Ariz. — For the first time ever, the sky was officially falling in the Valley—directly in Cody Horvath’s front yard.
“I noticed the black rock sitting right here, covered by leaves. I picked it up, and as I picked it up I thought, ‘Who threw this here?’ And I was going to toss it, and then I started really looking at it,” he said.
Horvath said it was a heavy matte black rock about the size of a kiwi.
“It didn't look like normal rock, and it looked like it had been on fire, and it looked like it hit pretty hard. So at that point I thought, ‘This might be a meteorite,’” he said.
And after researching and calling in professional meteorite hunters, he found he was right.
“This is part of the crust that had broken off,” Horvath said, showing off small pieces of the meteorite sealed in a Ziploc bag. “The fusion crust is on the outside, and then on the inside, you can see the little flakes of the metal and other minerals in there. The orange area is where it’s oxidizing, from being in contact with our environment.”
According to the American Meteorite Society, the meteor fell on the night of July 27, streaking brightly in the skies over Phoenix.
However, few people noticed it amid the storms that night, possibly mistaking the meteor for monsoon lightning, according to the Arizona State University Center for Meteorite Studies. As a result, the American Meteor Society only received 12 reports of the fireball throughout the Valley.
The Center for Meteorite Studies says this is the first observed meteorite fall in the Valley and just the fifth observed meteorite fall in the state of Arizona.
It was a fitting find for Horvath, considering that growing up in the Four Corners area has given him a natural curiosity for different rocks. His newfound discovery has made him quite the popular guy.
“One of my friends, Ryan, he mentioned that I’m a rock star now,” he said.