REPORTS OF 14-YEAR OLD GERMAN BOY'S EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENCOUNTER DON'T ADD UP The Gerrit Blank Story is All Meteorwrong [The author is the Curator of the Macovich Collection of Meteorites in New York City---one of the largest and most famous private collections in the world] Of the following 2009 storylines, which is false: (a) in Monsters vs. Aliens, Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) is struck by a meteorite and turns into a giant; (b) in X Men Origins: Wolverine, James Howlett (Hugh Jackman) participates in a mission to recover a prized meteorite which contains the strongest element known to man; or (c) on his way to school, 14-year old Gerrit Blank is struck by a red-hot, pea-sized meteorite which was traveling at a speed of 30,00MPH, which left a three inch scar after having caromed off his hand, and was still traveling fast enough to leave a smoldering crater in the street? Answer: Hollywood screenwriters have nothing on The Gerrit Blank Story. However, as Gerrit's story was framed as news, herein is a primer on extraterrestrial impacts--particularl y for the reporters and editors of the dozens of major papers and science web portals who filed a report about Gerrit Blank's Day Off. The headline screamed "Schoolboy Survives Direct Hit By Meteorite Traveling at 30,000 MPH." Gerrit was widely quoted: "At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. When it hit me it knocked me flying and was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road." Gerrit was not struck by a projectile traveling 30,000 MPH---faster than a speeding bullet. Only in the vacuum of outer space do meteorites travel a cosmic velocity of tens of thousands of miles an hour---not when they impact Earth's atmosphere, which is akin to hitting a brick wall (with an expected immediate deceleration). In fact, atmospheric friction is sufficiently immense that meteorites even weighing several tons lose their entire cosmic velocity miles above Earth's surface---a moment referred to as its "retardation point." A meteorite will then briefly accelerate until it achieves the terminal velocity of its free-fall to Earth at a speed of only----depending upon drag coefficients---150-4 00 MPH. As for the bright light and sonic boom: it certainly had to have been a very large meteorite to be noticeably luminous in daylight. Where are the other witnesses who surely would have seen and heard this as well? And if the meteorite exploded into tiny fragments in the atmosphere, where are all the other specimens? While meteorites can indeed result in sonic booms, such a sonic phenomena would have occurred before impact. There is, moreover, another time line problem which requires resolving: at approximately 10 miles in altitude, meteorites decelerate to a point where they are no longer luminous. The final stage of a meteorite's journey to Earth is several minutes of an invisible, dark flight, and typically a meteorite will land a hundred miles or more from where it was last seen in the sky. The smoldering crater? As a result of cooling during their extended free fall to Earth, tiny meteorites are not even warm to the touch. In short, could Gerrit Blank have been struck by a meteorite or meteorite fragment? It's unlikely--even the object depicted does not comport with the typical character of a freshly fallen meteorite. What's totally unclear is whether a vivid imagination or reckless reporting are responsible for the planetary-sized inconsistencies.