In 1954, an Alabama woman named Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges was hit by a meteorite that crashed through the roof of her home in Sylacauga, Alabama. Curious onlookers and reporters flocked to the home and Ann Hodges was rushed to the hospital. The remarkable event turned Ann into an overnight celebrity, but there was little attention to the physical and mental strain that the incident caused for Ann. After a legal squabble with the land lady, Ann Hodges got her meteorite back. However, the buzz had died down and nobody was interested in buying it anymore. Therefore she donated it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Later, Ann suffered a nervous breakdown and spend her final years in a Sylacauga nursing home. Ann Hodges died in 1972 at the age of 52.
—Jelle Havermans