He scratched his head as he looked at the hole in his roof. Then he circled the damaged bush and saw another hole in the ground. “What the?” Josua whispered. Something wasn’t right.
Suddenly, a strange smell filled the air. It was something he never smelt before. He walked to his workshop, grabbed a shovel, and started digging until his eyes widened and his heart stood still.
Josua Hutagalung had a unique job. Apart from being a loving husband and father, he was a coffin maker. He worked from home mostly where he created a small workshop.
He worked long hours. It was the nature of the business. Some days he struggled to make ends meet, other days he didn’t. And this day would ensure that he never had to struggle again.
Josua and his family lived in Sumatra, Indonesia. He had two sons, a one-year-old and a three-year-old. They were his happiness and the reason he worked so hard.
He wanted to provide a stable future for them. One where they never had to experience the toil of financial pressure. Little did he know, that day would come sooner rather than later.
Josua enjoyed having the house to himself as he focused on his carpeting. His wife had gone out early this morning with their two kids to spend time with their grandparents.
He soaked up the sun as he flexed his muscles, following the curvature of wood. The clouds moved fast overhead as rays of warmth intermittently hit his back. It was a moment of calm before the storm.
“I was working on a coffin near the street in front of my house when I heard a booming sound that made my house shake”, Joshua said.
The loud bang, vibration of the earth, and shaking of his house, made him imagine the worst. He panicked as he thought of an earthquake. But Josua had lived through earthquakes before. This one felt different. And it was.
The shaking stopped as soon as it began. Once he was sure it was safe, he ventured into the house to check the damage. He really hoped the essentials of running his household were spared. He couldn’t afford any big repairs.
Surprisingly, nothing was wrong. Relieved, he walked back outside but that’s when he saw it.
Walking towards his workshop, he noticed a strange shadow on the ground. He turned around to see a big hole had been cut out of his roof.
Confused, he inspected it. Then he ran to the street in front of his house. Then he ran to the back of his house and out onto the street. No one was there. Suddenly, he heard a strange noise coming from the bushes.
He crept over, expecting to find the guilty kid who caused damage to his roof, but what he actually found was so much more.
As he got closer, he heard a hissing sound. He wondered if it was actually an animal. Either way, he wasn’t scared. He reached into the bushes and pushed the shrubs to the side. But as soon as his hand touched the bush, he shouted in pain.
He jumped back and took a look at his hands. They were red, tingling. Confused, he cautiously circled the bush, and there it was. Another hole. Something was coming out of it.
“What the?”, Josua whispered. With his hands healed, he walked over to his workshop, grabbed a small shovel, and started digging.
A strange smell filled the air. It was something he had never smelt before. He was pretty sure he wasn’t dealing with an animal. But then again, he wasn’t sure of anything.
As he dug deeper, the smell got stronger, and then he could feel it. His shovel sounded a dull thud as he hit whatever was down there. He shoveled more dirt away until his eyes popped.
“How did this big rock get down here?”, Josua mused. He had leveled out his home before he built it and he never saw that before. Then he looked up at the hold in the roof.
“Did someone throw this thing here?”, he said in disbelief. He threw aside the shovel. He wanted to move the rock to get to the source of the smell. But when he touched the rock, his hands burned. What was it?
Josua was building a coffin in his backyard when a smoking hot meteorite came hurtling through the atmosphere and smashed through the outer edge of his roof, lodging itself deep within the ground.
Meteorites are one of the world’s wildest phenomenons that can sometimes leave a huge dent in the earth. Luckily for Josua, his meteorite was a little different.
The four-billion-year-old meteorite weighed in at around 4.5 pounds and was later classified as an extremely rare CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite variety. And the price tag?
This type of material sells for $850 per gram in the space-rock market. So if you do the math, approximately $1,858,556 dollars fell from the sky directly into Josua’s chosen hands. But how much did Josua sell his lucky star for?
Josua remained quiet about how much he sold it for, however it’s guesstimated that he sold it for well over one million dollars to American space-rock guru Jared Collins.
Collins then sold the extra-terrestrial treasure to Dr. Jay Piateck who sent it to the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University, where it remains stored in liquid nitrogen. As for Josua?
Josua plans to build a church for his community with his newfound fortune but he also has a more personal desire, something money can’t buy.
“I have always wanted a daughter, and I hope this is a sign that I will be lucky enough now to have one,” he said. There’s something beautiful about having more money than you could ask for and still wishing for something money can’t buy. Maybe his good fortune wasn’t such a freak accident after all…
