Transmitting from the Mojave Wilderness in Joshua Tree, California, now is the time for Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the American desert and things are always falling on something or other, hopefully not on you and yours.

Although I did see a very bright meteor the other night and I wondered where did that thing fall.

The old woman meteorite crashed out of the sky and into the old woman mountains in the

Mojave's some 10,000 years ago, but it wasn't until 1975 that a couple of desert miners

discovered the giant chunk of space iron.

It was nestled between common granite boulders.

Well, the miners were pretty excited.

After all, this would turn out to be the biggest meteorite ever found in California and the second

biggest ever recovered in the whole of the United States, the size of a kitchen stove, iron

from space.

Well, as often happens in the desert, the finders did not end up being the keepers.

As the Interior Department successfully argued that the meteorite was not discovered on the miners' claim,

but on Bureau of Land Management land, and it was a meteorite of public scientific interest.

After a long battle, the old woman meteorite went on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.,

but only for two years from 1978 to 1980.

Then it was returned on permanent loan from the Smithsonian,

not to the miners, but to California.

And you can see this fantastic thing today,

minus a slice the Smithsonian cutout for study.

At the Desert Discovery Center in downtown Barstow.

It's a great desert museum.

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