Russian police were combing the northern Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk on Friday for a three-tonne meteorite that has disappeared from under the nose of its keepers.
The giant rock was stolen from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908, news agency Interfax reported.
Whether the meteorite actually was the cause of the Tunguska explosion is very debatable, but 3 tonnes of giant space rock is still going to be packed full of metals that many an enterprising thief would love to exploit.
Can you melt meteors down for scrap? No idea. But even if not, you’ve got to give the thieves kudos for their style.
Anyway, for more stories of enterprising Russian metal thefts check out my posts from 2004 about the steel bridge that was removed from a river in Ukraine, the 14.5 tonne steam train that went missing from a museum in Donetsk and, until now easily the most enterprising theft of them all, the 30 meter radar tower which was stolen from a military base in Vladimir).
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W. Shedd 08.12.07 at 1:00 am
That darn Lex Luthor! He just can’t resist stealing a hunk of kryptonite …
Jesse Heath 08.12.07 at 3:16 am
Hilarious…maybe the rock was actually a high tech listening device used by British agents
Bob Higgins 08.13.07 at 5:01 am
The question is why?
Besides anyone capable of walking off with a 3 ton rock extraterrestrial or otherwise is entitled to it.
Tell them to leave me a number in case I need to have my car towed, or my piano moved.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust
Aleks 08.13.07 at 10:43 pm
The aliens (probably French), wanted it back obviously. They lost it during a giant galactic game of pétanque
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