A RECORD FAKE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10059, 2 June 1910, Page 4

A RECORD FAKE.

No one a3 yet has gone to tha trouble to "fake" a comet, but in view of the latest tbing in American frauds, there is no knowing what may One night recently what looked like a shooting star was observed by some people in Massachusetts. Within a few hours a farm hand living in the direction in which the star fell found on the ground underneath some ironwork that had been unaccountably broken during the night, a large heavy stone of a peculiar kind, The lower end of the stone was hot, and it was noticed that while the sand round the stone was dry, the surrounding earrh was moist, This was interesting indeed —a falling star seen and a strange stone, still hot, found buried in the which it must have struck with great force. What else could the stone be but a meteorite? Meteorite it was, in everybody's opinion, and a dime museum secured it as a money drawing curiosity. But science has learned by long experience to adopt Sherlock Holmes' policy of following facts, regardless of where they may lead to. The stone was found it be different from all known aerolites. The seed of suspicion, thus planted, grew until its roots metaphorically split the meteorite into pieces. For the stone had been placed in the ground by the hand of man, helped by a mo-tor-car. Ihe whole tbing was a "fake." The dime museum proprietor purchased the stone from a Vermont man, who declared it had fallen in New Hampshire. The purchaser saw greater possibilities of moneymaking in a little local colour, so he arranged a fall in the neighbourhood. It is known that the meteorite was planted by night, and that the ironwork was deliberately broken to lend an air of verisimilitude to the phenomenon. How the light of the falling star waß represented, and the stone heated, is not Known, but it is suggested that a balloon was sent up fitted with a-rocket and a time fuse. Indeed, a vague story is current that suggests the possibility of two rockets being sent up at different times, to make sure that the light would be seen by someone not in the business.