Strange lights in the sky are popping up in news reports across the country. It’s almost an atavistic instinct to expect some kind of trouble to drop from the sky, and nothing scares people quite like an unknown object overhead. I don’t know if that is because ancient texts often predict or recount disasters related to these types of events, or if it’s something innate in us that is drawn to thinking about these things, but the fascination is real. The interesting story of a meteorite that fell in Blanket, and a storm that seemed to accompany it, like a harbinger of doom, must have occasioned a good deal of talk, theories and perhaps a few armchair predictions about the end of all things, just like the drone fleets are doing now.

The meteor event in Blanket, along with the infamous tornado that virtually destroyed the town of Zephyr, took place within a day of each other, in the spring of1909. An article from the Fort Worth Star Telegram, and published on May 31, 1909, described the remarkable events that created a bit of panic among witnesses. The article,unearthed by Clay Riley at Pecan Valley Genealogical Society, is entitled Bursting Meteor Terrifies Refugees of Zephyr Cyclone, and recounts the oddly timed occurrences:

“Judge Lattimore was driving from Indian Gap to Comanche and had stopped on the road about three miles from Comanche about 10 o’clock to discuss the Zephyr cyclone with one of the people who had been to the scene of the devastation. At the time the sky was perfectly clear and the moon was shining so brightly that a book could have been read from its light alone,” the article said.

“Suddenly the moonlight faded in the wonderful brilliance of a sudden light. “My God, it’s going to get us all”, called the man who had returned from Zephyr and had his mind still fresh with the horrors at that place. A loud report which followed fully a minute and half after the stream of fire shot across the sky, sounded like a thunder clap of hundredfold strength. From the usual calculation of the difference in time required to carry light and sound waves, the bolt must have been fully ninety miles from the spot where the men saw it. Despite this great distance, the cloud of sand must have been carried by the wind from far in West Texas.”

“So heavy was the sand that the sun was completely obscured, though there were no rain clouds in the sky and the sun had been shining brightly a short time before.Judge Lattimore returned Monday from Indian Gap, where he delivered an address Sunday, at the unveiling of the Woodmen’s monument at that place,’ the report concludes. I’m not sure the sun can be obscured while the moon is shining, but maybe the Judge was caught up in the excitement? Well. Regardless, the event did take place.

The story of the Blanket meteorite was elaborated on by a man called Oscar Monning, who interviewed an eyewitness to the event in 1950. Monning’s report states that he spoke with then 79-year-old Mrs. M. J. Rominks, who recalled the meteorite landing while she was visiting her grandfather’s farm. Mrs. Rominks said it was on a warm afternoon, while she was outside barefoot, that the meteorite came crashing through the trees and hit within 10–15 feet of where she was. She said the rock was about the size of a clenched fist, and appeared to have been burned. From what I discovered, the largest piece of the Blanket meteorite weighed about 4lbs, and several pieces of it are owned by the Chicago Field Museum, while others ended up in private collections, sold by dealers such as David New, whose catalog of his own specimen you can see in the image.

Odd events in the sky do make people nervous. The otherworldly events of 1909 in both Zephyr and Blanket, which surely seemed like Armageddon, turned out to be just a bizarre coincidence, at least as far as we can tell now. It was not, in fact, the end of the world. Hopefully, the tales of all these other strange objects in the sky we’re hearing about lately, drones and UFO reports, will end as well for us as the Blanket meteorite event did for those who witnessed that extraordinary sight overhead.

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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns appear Thursdays on BrownwoodNews.com. Comments regarding her columns can be emailed to [email protected].