Posted on 05/24/2004 3:09:29 PM PDT by yankeedame
Meteorite smuggling
05/22/2004 14:34
A woman attempted to transport a heavy-weight meteorite from Russia to Japan
Customs officers discovered an iron meteorite weighing 1kg among personal belongings of a woman from a Russian city of Khabarovsk who was on her way to visit Japan.
According to the information provided by customs services of the Far East, officers managed to detect the celestial rock by means of special scanner at the Khabarovsk airport.
Staff of the local department of preservation of cultural artifacts confirmed the fact that the find was precisely meteorite. They also provided an estimate-43 000 rubles. Specialists also labeled the meteorite as "national property of the government."
Today, the woman faces criminal charges for attempting to secretly transport the piece abroad.
Khabarovsk customs officers encountered such case for the first time. Their colleagues from the Coastal region deal with such smuggling of meteorites more often since it was in that region that the so-called "Sitohe-Alinsky" meteorite had crashed in the region more than 50 years ago. Its pieces can still be found in Ussuriiskaya taiga.
But it is my lucky rock!
If it falls in my backyard, it's mine.
However, if it's a "celestial rock," you'd best leave it at home.
After all, it's the "national property of the government."
It is for this reason that people don't own backyards in communist places. Yup: meteorites.
Check out the UN Outer Space Treaty that I rant on sometimes. You can't own a meteorite even if it walks up to your door and asks to be adopted.
Custom officials were immediately suspicious of the woman, who repeatedly hopped around muttering 'oww, oww, oooh this thing sure is hot..'
The United Nations will need to show me a signature from another planet recognizing their ownership of all meteorites in the universe (known and unknown). Until then they have no jurisdiction.
I recently learned that there is a pretty good market for meteorites on eBay.
43000 rubles is about $1400. Meteorites are very hard to price unless you're up on this sort of thing. Price varies on the size, shape, and even on it's eye appeal. The Sikhote-Alinsky area contains two types of specimens so we can only assume this one was of the higher market value as opposed to shrapnel since they women were sneaking it out. We must also take the Russian specialists' word it's true value but stating it's "national property of the government" is ridiculous since those have been sold world wide.
Actually the UN was merely the venue for negotiation of the Treaty. It is an international treaty, which the US in some misguided liberal attampt to be Good Guys both sponsored and signed.
Meteorites have been sold for over a hundred years since they were finally recognized as coming from the sky -- something known by the first civilization of Egypt. Whether they can be owned and therefore sold depends on a lot of things, including whether the gov't has allowed a permit. If a meteorite lands near your house on your property, but the various gov't and university people show up, you might be forced to part with the meteorite. If you find a meteorite in Yemen, you might be able to sell it on the black market without much trouble.
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