Meteorites have enthralled me since I was a child. But it wasn’t until my early thirties that I set out to hunt them for real. It was films such as King Solomon's Mines and Lawrence of Arabia that must have instilled in me the need to adventure in far-off — and, preferably, slightly dangerous — places. In an era before streaming, or even VCRs, these movies were rebroadcast during the holidays of my youth. And the brilliant deserts and grandeur of unknown landscapes seemed particularly intoxicating when viewed from gray and rainy old London.
I didn't know much about hunting meteorites then. But I was lucky and determined; I found a few meteorites on my own. Then, in 1996, a curious individual on the internet found me. His name was Steve Arnold, and he told me he was a full-time meteorite hunter.
I was awestruck. He was very nonchalant about it, as if anyone could do it. Although that may not be true, Arnold nonetheless kickstarted my career as a meteorite hunter. I joined him on a sometimes terrifying journey across Chile's Atacama Desert in a two-wheel drive Toyota, which I do not recommend attempting. However, during the three-week search, we found hundreds of small meteorites. I knew I could never go back to normal life again. I was hooked on the thrill of the expedition, especially if it took me far, far out into the empty desert, much like in those films I had loved as a kid.
Years later, Arnold and I would star together in a hit television series for Science Channel called Meteorite Men.
Over the years, I have crossed the Sahara in a battered Land Rover. I have been dropped by helicopter into a 35-million-year-old impact crater in Siberia. I have found a 69-pound iron meteorite in the Arctic that was transported there by a glacier during the last ice age. And I have picked up zoomorphic space rocks (those shaped into animal forms) from the surface of Australia's timeworn Nullarbor Plain. Always, my goal was to get to the most inaccessible places where meteorites had fallen, find them, and bring them home.
It is not only the act of collecting meteorites that has driven me across six continents, but also the desire to explore the history of the others’ collections. Space rocks from historic collections are highly prized by enthusiasts, perhaps because they give us a tangible link to those who have gone before us, those who had carefully curated the specimens so they would survive through the centuries and continue to be admired today.
