[imagesource: Handout]

It all started on August 1 at around 5PM when a meteorite, roughly the size of a watermelon, crashed through a tin canopy on the side of Josua Hutagalung’s home in the North Sumatra province in Indonesia.

It landed with a degree of force that embedded it roughly six inches into the ground.

Hutagalung filmed the object with his phone and posted it on social media, following which offers to buy the meteorite started flooding in.

A week later Jared Collins, an American intermediary for buyers in the US, got in touch and offered a price.

Over to VICE for what happened next.

They made the exchange and the meteorite was sent to the US, where it was verified as genuine, classified under the name of the area it was found in, “Kolang,” and listed on the website of the Meteoritical Society.

Then the British tabloids got wind of it and published that the price of the sale was about $1,8 million, turning Josua into an “instant” millionaire.

In classic tabloid fashion, this wasn’t a verified sum, and had been calculated by attempting to multiply the weight and online value estimates from other bits of meteorites that had fallen in the same area.

Josua had told the BBC’s Indonesia service that he sold it for just over $14 000, not including the cost of repairing his damaged roof.

Collins, the intermediary, didn’t reveal the actual price.

“Clarifying the news that is currently circulating about the estimated value of the purchase of the meteorite, or the compensation given to the stone, we can be sure that the figures mentioned are completely untrue and incorrect,” he told VICE World News through Magnifique, a PR agency in Jakarta that also worked with Josua.

In actuality, the amount paid out was neither the $14 163 figure mentioned in early reports nor $1,8 million.

“Currently there are no meteorites of such value, and of course no collector will pay that price,” Collins said through the agency.

So how much was it actually worth?

Laurence Garvie, a meteorite expert from Arizona State University who classified the meteorite, described it as an “extra-terrestrial mudball” that might be worth $2.

Bit of an anticlimax there.

If it had been a bit of Asteroid Psyche, this would have been a whole different story.

Things have not been going well for Hutagalung since all the media reports did the rounds.

“I’m afraid my child will be kidnapped because they think I’m already rich, and they will ask for ransom. But you can see firsthand what it looks like, just ordinary, still like before, nothing is different,” he told VICE World News after agreeing to a rare in-person interview at his modest home, which he was busy painting.

If he actually had the money, “I would recruit at least five security guards” for protection, he added.

The coffin maker is still making a living doing what he did before he was briefly the most famous man in Indonesia.

He wants everyone to know that he isn’t a millionaire.

There you have it.

If a meteorite crashes into your home, depending on its makeup, you’re probably going to walk away with having to pay to fix the damage.

[source:vice]