Not to be trusted
Courtesy superbombaHey, so a little German lad was hit on his little German paw by a meteorite traveling in the neighborhood of 30,000 miles per hour. No doubt he cried, and said something funny in German, but things are working out for him now.
Here are two problems I would like y’all to address:
Problem one: The article says that the bullet-sized meteorite “bounced off” the boy’s hand, before gouging a foot-long crater in the pavement beneath him. Mm-kay… awesome. But answer this, Augustus Gloop: a rifle bullet travels at about 1000 meters per second, or 2,237 miles per hour. A rifle bullet wouldn’t bounce off your hand. Your hand wouldn’t even bounce off the bullet. This bullet-sized space rock was traveling more than 13 times faster than a bullet, and it just “bounced off” your hand? I think you’re lying, Augustus! What really happened to your hand, Augustus?!
Also, the article says that the chances of being struck by a meteorite are about 1 in 100 million. Doesn’t that seem really high? Most meteorites totally burn up in the atmosphere, and the ones that do reach Earth almost always fall in the water. (The article says that about 6 out of 7 meteorites hit the water… but where does that come from? You’d think that would mean that about 86% of the Earth is covered by water, but the actual area is closer to 70%. Anyway…) So, still, the chances of getting hit by a meteorite are 1 in 100 million? But the odds of winning the jackpot in the lottery are about 1 in 200 million, and that seems to happen more often than human meteor strikes. If there are 6.7 billion people on the planet, 67 of those people should be hit by meteorites at some point in their lives, but I’m not ever hearing about it. Someone explain this to me. Why doesn’t the world share its hilarious and disgusting meteorite-strike stories? Is this a conspiracy? Augustus Gloop, are you behind this too? Are you?!
Yeah - the boy is lying.
Idiot media outlets have picked this story up world-wide, and none have taken the time to investigate it.
This isn't the first such ridiculous claim, but tomorrow is something else to read, and follow-ups are not news. Once it is revealed he is a liar, no one will care, or even remember this kid's fifteen minutes of fame.
Well, mostly I was just being sassy—I don't know that he's lying. It's just a very strange story, is all.
Like I said, it seems even less probably than 1 in 100 million. But considering the mind boggling number of people alive on the planet, mind bogglingly unlikely events must happen to people every day. So who knows? I just wanted an excuse to call a German boy Augustus Gloop.
Great picture. It looks like one of my crazy family vacations from way back when... Potato pancakes included.
Pay attention to this boy. He obviously is Clark Kent jr. since his hand is tougher then the pavement underneath him!
One in 100,000,000 over your entire lifespan, not each day, week or year? Apparently about once every 9 years there is a report of someone somewhere in the world being struck by a meteorite in one way or another.
If you have 6 billion people as potential targets for meteorites to hit 1 every 9 years over a 50 year lifespan, that would work out to just over 1 in 1 billion chance of being hit at some point in your life.
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