Meteorite Men | Kansas: Return To Alpha | Full HD Episodes

steve arnold and jeff notkin are modern day treasure hunters they're calling to me i've got meteorites in my bones they travel the world in search of meteorites alien invaders that have been crashing into our planet for the last four and a half billion on this quest jeff and steve returned to their top secret alpha site in kansas where in 2008 they unearthed a massive meteorite worth approximately 25 000 now they're back convinced there are even bigger space rocks on a piece of property that until now has been off weights we're optimistic this parcel of land might contain some significant meteorites that sounds really good the hunt is on for huge meteorites packed with valuable extraterrestrial gemstones we're looking at a half a million dollars in the high quality gemstones this time they have a secret weapon a meteorite hunting motorcycle built by orange county choppers the bike will lead them to their biggest find ever it's a monster yeah baby success at last [Music] jeff and steve have just arrived in eastern kansas deep in the heartland of america the guys are returning to a piece of property they don't want anyone else to know about do you remember the first time we came up and it was i think it was july yeah it was like 116 which was like a wrecker and i remember saying we're never going to come up here in the summer again and now it's almost the same time of year the guys have given this site the code name alpha they're keeping the location a secret because the meteorites here contain something rare and very valuable the alpha meteorite is rich in olivine crystals a few of those are gem quality crystals if word leaked out regarding where we're finding these rocks there would be a plague of people to send upon this site like locusts really in 2008 they found a 109 pound rock roughly four miles from a piece of property the guys have never been allowed to explore the new land is toward the big end of the strewn field where the guys think the large pieces of the meteorite fell jeff and steve are confident they'll find a meteorite two to three times bigger and more valuable at this new site after years of negotiation we finally managed to gain access to a choice piece of land and there's a good chance it will contain spectacular meteorites when meteorites plummet to earth the area where they land is called the strewn field as it fragments into multiple pieces typically the small pieces fall first and the bigger ones go further because they've got more mass and inertia it carries them that extra bit of distance where we're finding big meteorites that are widely dispersed that's at the big end and that's where we are here at alpha there aren't many meteorites out here but if there are any they're going to be big kansas is considered the cosmic bullseye of america with more meteorites found per square mile than any other state which is why it's a popular place to dig for space rocks day one of the hunt jeff and steve strategize the best way to cover the most ground in a short amount of time using intel from previous finds they decide to divide the land into five hunt areas based on the likelihood of finding the largest meteorites location number one is located in the southwest section of the new search area and the sweet spot of the strewn field here's where some pieces have been found that's where we're at right now the guys are relying on these previous finds to lead them to the next big meteorite like clues on a treasure map i think one of the most important tools in searching for meteorites is a good map knowing where you want to look and basing that on intelligence and research all right well we can talk about it all day or we can go find something there's got to be one more out there waiting for us location number one is a field covered with small trees and other obstacles which forces the guys to hunt slowly on foot using handheld metal detectors it's time to stop talking about it it's time to start doing it i'm using our medium sized detector this is the 18 inch coil this is very good for medium to large targets at a moderate depth one of the unique aspects of the alpha site is that the big meteorites found here are buried relatively close to the surface 12 to 18 inches below the topsoil is a hard and impenetrable layer of bedrock the length of the alpha stream field which is many many miles tells us that the angle of entry was probably not steep it was probably relatively shallow it gave the meteoroid more time to burn those rocks are breaking up they're dropping pieces all along jeff and steve believe this shallow trajectory allowed the meteorite to slow down enough to land without damaging the valuable olivine crystals all right there's my first target of the day sounds pretty close to the surface it's right about there not this ground is hard our first media wrong of the day some barbed wire a meteorong is anything that's not a meteorite plain and simple not what we're looking for for every meteorite that we discover we typically unearth 10 or 50 or 100 meteor wrongs that comes with the territory you got to find where they're not to make sure you've really covered all the places that they could be [Music] that sounds kind of encouraging nice strong target that one sounded close to the surface but i'm not seeing anything oh wow this is really interesting here's a bit of uh harness from uh a horse it's been in the ground so long that this roots grown through it that's probably frontier era jeff i found a hatchet i found a bit of an old bridle oh that's cool we must be on the santa fe trail yeah no doubt the old santa fe trail crossed this field in the 1800s explorers and pioneers used the santa fe trail as the major thoroughfare across the united states the wagons would break things would fall out they'd set up the camp there's proof that there were people here well whoever dropped that hatch it might have dropped the iron i guess they just put that on the fire until it gets hot pull it out iron their clothes out with it the guys have returned to alpha confident they can unearth a huge meteorite on a piece of land they couldn't get permission to hunt until now the alpha strewn field crosses many different land owners properties this particular piece of land was owned by a landowner that i've been trying to contact and get a lease for over three years it's day one of the hunt jeff and steve have been exploring location number one for almost six hours based on their old finds jeff and steve suspect the bigger rocks from the fall flew farther down the stream field and could have landed here the distribution of pieces out here in the string field actually gives us clues about what happened during the event that created them and that's one of the reasons we like to carefully map strewn fields and log the location of every find that we make well that's quite exciting because of the zone of the strewn field in which we're hunting which we call the big end we expect any meteorites that might be out here to be on the large side as in 20 30 pounds at least and the way strewn fields are formed is a result of potential meteorites we call them meteoroids breaking up in the atmosphere and the smaller pieces tend to land first in small clusters and the larger pieces because they've got more mass and inertia will get carried further and so there is a relatively uniform distribution in most strewn fields we find small pieces at one end and medium in the middle and a few larger ones at the big end and we're close to the big end so we're actually listening for loud targets out here and that sounds pretty that sounds pretty exciting that's by far the strongest signal i've gotten out here that one we're definitely gonna dig wow it was a bigger target wow look at that it's an old plow blade serval dura's off though quite stylish really it's just another in a series of media wrongs and the guys are starting to get frustrated for years they've been sure that this land would produce and quickly both agree to hunt for another 45 minutes if i don't find something by then i'm gonna probably start hitting things with my pick that aren't the ground but uh that's ugly i don't really want you to have to see that you getting anything oh just stuff yeah me too it's a lot of junk no meteorites i think we might as well just call it a day having hunted this area before the meteorite men anticipated the need for a versatile all-terrain vehicle to cover the most ground a couple months ago they asked the guys at orange county choppers to build a state-of-the-art meteorite hunting machine for the fields of alpha i think it's going to end up being the meteorite men's secret weapon just prior to the hunt jeff and steve visited occ to check on the bike's progress is this really our bike this is it it's the beginning of it pretty cool is this really your equipment this is this is our stuff holy mackerel so that's what we're out looking for heavy metal almost as heavy as the bike that's heavy man the material it wasn't really what i expected it's almost like a piece of steel one of our missions today was to bring in all of our equipment our metal detectors rock cameras our laptops gps all the gear that we travel with in the field to discuss with the designers how they're going to fit on the bike how big of a meteorite will that be able to hoist out of a hole about the size of it between either one or two ton wow okay well the idea with the winch is it's strong enough so you can drag this thing backwards when you get it stuck this bike is definitely going to be an asset it's going to take us some places where we could not get any other vehicle no doubt about it day two after failing at location number one the guys regroup at a local cafe to see if they can agree on a new plan of attack it's rare when these two agree on anything steve's conservative he is very liberal jeff's a neat freak some would say i'm sloppy hungry yeah i am a vegetarian but he'll eat any kind of meat that exists on the face of the earth i like an egg and can i get bacon and sausage and i'd like the omelet please but no meat the guys also don't see eye to eye when it comes to what they would do if they find a big rocket alpha you're breaking them down well um it's kind of an acid that i use you're putting my meteorites in acid [Music] steve is known to submerge alpha meteorites in an acid bath to extract the valuable crystals inside the stones found at alpha are incredibly rare stony iron palace sites and are the only type of meteorites that contain olivine crystals that are large enough to be faceted into gemstones and sold for large sums of money the process of extracting the stones from these space rocks destroys the nickel iron matrix leaving the crystals from the four and a half billion-year-old meteorite intact steve's really all about the money i think meteorites are luminous visitors from outer space and they should be admired and preserved and protected depending on size and weight a one carat high quality extraterrestrial gemstone is worth up to five thousand dollars slightly less than a quality diamond but a lot more rare you you treat them as as if these are animated objects like they're alive and they're putting them in acids hurting them or something but they've traveled such a long way to be here don't you think it's a little bit disrespectful to take a beautiful thing like this and put it in a tub of acid just to get gemstones out of it jeff wants to keep every meteorite intact he doesn't even hardly want to wipe the dirt off of him my attitude is hey let's make the money on it um he's a purist i'm a realist you know worst cases we find a beautiful meteorite i hit steve over the head with a shovel and leave him in the hole from which the meteorite came once bacon the guys struck out at location number one they have high hopes for location number two it's another area they've never hunted and it's close to one of their bigger funds but there's a problem steve arranged to have the hay harvested so it would be clear for hunting but the farmer cut the wrong field the guys are out of luck if there is a monster meteorite at location number two they won't be finding it today it looks like you just started today and i don't know how long it takes it well probably a long time by the time he gets to this will probably be gone yeah jeff and steve are left with no choice but to head off to their next pasture of opportunity location number three is north of number two with lots of different types of terrain the guys are going to try a new tool hoping the big rocks flew past the first two locations and landed here i got three detectors to build horatio yeah but i've got three things to put together you've only got one because alpha meteorites contain a high concentration of iron metal detectors are the ideal tools to hunt this buried treasure the first metal detector was invented by alexander graham bell in 1881 it was used as a medical device to find the fatal bullet lodged in president james garfield's body metal detectors today are more sophisticated but operate the same way a signal is broadcast as an electromagnetic field when that signal encounters a metallic object there's a change in frequency over the years steve and jeff have built an assortment of metal detectors they've got all shapes and sizes and can pick and choose which ones to use depending on the hunt terrain this is the giant 18 foot wide coil and it's uh too big to handle by hand so uh we've evolved over the time from a cart with wheels to to now we're on to a sled we can't have any metal and so we're subject to pvc pipe glue zip ties and uh duct tape doesn't it remind you of the mad scientist tinkering in his laboratory [Music] it's a working this is the new gemini 3 it's a new design the principle is both of these bits are in effect small metal detector coils so the idea is we suspend them on this strut and you walk through your target area the control box sends a signal a radio frequency down into the ground and it's picked up by the second box because the two boxes are separated it gives us quite a big search area and the part that excites me the most is you can use it in any terrain so it's uh one of the latest weapons in our arsenal so we're going to try calibrating it now any kind of mineralization in the soil will affect the detector so i need to calibrate it so that it's familiar with the terrain in which it's working transmitters on receivers on [Music] that's not going to work you did read the manual didn't you yeah okay for the record i haven't touched that no you haven't you don't have any metal on you do you well this thing's just not calibrating well i'm gonna take the truck and you keep working on that a little bit [Music] so jeff's back there trying to figure out how to get this to box thing working it is essential for what we've got going on this part of the hunt we need to be able to hunt with it in areas that there's just no way this machine can get to the massive metal detector sends out an electromagnetic pulse through almost 30 feet of cable which is connected to a receiver box steve carries in the cab of the truck it's like mowing a lawn with a metal detector if he hears a signal he'll stop and investigate further with a handheld device while steve starts to comb location number three jeff is in calibration hell well i'm really not having any luck getting this uh unit working i mean it's a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment i think it's just that i'm not up to speed and how they use it i'm very frustrated right now it's about 100 degrees out here and i'd like to be hunting meanwhile steve has a problem of his own look at this they're crazy they're circling me get out of here [Music] hey don't eat that ah rope out of here [Music] yeah yeah go go go play somewhere else let's go come on i'll take you come on the landowner leases this ground to a rancher that keeps cattle out here but he's also listening to me to hunt meteorites and every once in a while our two interests cross [Music] paths find anything yet i found a truck oh did you jeff finally gets the two box calibrated i think this is going to work great on really big targets do you want to hop in sure he hitches a ride with steve to an area where he can put the detector to use just when things are looking up another problem oh man the rope bro jeff notkin and steve arnold repaired the rope on their giant 18-foot metal detector sled and are back on the hunt for meteorites in kansas they've been exploring location number three but unsuccessfully with just a few hours until paul senior delivers their new meteorite hunting motorcycle the guys decide to check out one more area location number four we're optimistic that this parcel of land might contain some significant meteorites hey steve thanks for leaving all your trash in the back of the truck it's very nice oh i'm sorry next time i'll litter to cover as much ground as possible jeff and steve split up this site where we're at now still towards the big end of the strewn field i mean i think if there's anything here we could expect to find meteorites that weigh between 50 and 100 pounds with a deep seeking two box detector finally calibrated jeff uses it to comb the area when he gets a signal he uses one of the hand-held detectors to pinpoint the exact spot to dig so there's something in there this one's tricky oh no wonder old nails after three hours in the hot sun at location number four jeff and steve see the one piece of equipment that could change the game there it is it's orange oh it really stands out well against the field here comes this majestic orange vehicle looking like a chariot rocketing down the dirt road with paul senior on it it was a sight i will never forget there's nothing missing it no way check it out that is a chunk of a machine it's white it's solid it's orange it's a mean machine wow [Music] you've outdone yourself i don't think they expected the bike to look the way it did man there's so much going on i tell you what this year gps is probably one of the biggest things we've got this gps unit mounted right in between the handlebars where we want it we're going to be able to track where we're going and more importantly we're going to be able to tell where we've been once that winch goes on the front or the back these are baja lights that you got here three with the guards on them we usually go over the top a little bit we do custom bikes they want something where they can go on a more of a rough terrain and also be able to carry the equipment it's sort of like watching a really proud parent talk about his child he showed us every little gadget oh yeah yeah we got a gas cap the occ staff took one of our actual meteorites made a cast out of it and used that for the gas tank cover it looks and feels like a real meteorite pretty cool i think you got it all going on here i don't you take it for a little ride i was just a little bit taken aback by how powerful it was and how heavy it is it's not a little lightweight dirt bike like i'm used to driving this is heavy metal it's got this throaty engine this bike is definitely going to help us find more meteorites no question about it we're burning daylight it's time to get out there and start doing what we do which is digging for space rocks all right well i guess i'm going to let you drive it now but i want you to remember some things that have happened in the past with you and heavy equipment yeah that's what i'm afraid of oops the guys take off to hook up the 18-foot coil and head back out into location number four with the addition of their new bike they've got everything they need to find the big meteorites oh steve this would make a good didgeridoo i bet a didgeridoo we could use that in australia i'll probably blend right in yeah you'd blend right in okay off into the sunset as it were reinvigorated the guys start to grid what's left of location number four's bumpy terrain [Music] just a few minutes into hunting on their new gadget-packed motorcycle jeff and steve get a major hit from their 18-foot coil we're driving hit a beep stop stop stop it was a nice little pop knew there was something metal barber got a you wrong but hey at least it's working and uh compared to everything else that's been going on i'm i'm this is this is a this is good this is better maybe we can find a meter at tomorrow though day three of the hunt before heading to alpha jeff and steve video conference with expert gemologist charles elias i had sent you up a batch of the crystals that that had been harvested out of one of the previous meteorites the crystals are olivine named for their green color and commonly found on earth in gem form they're called peridot until recently we only thought of peridot gems as originating from earth but in recent years steve and myself have faceted quality olivine crystals extracted from palestine meteorites and so we now have for the first time extraterrestrial peridot available on earth depending on the market peridot found on earth goes for about sixty dollars a carat the extraterrestrial peridot sells for up to five thousand dollars a carrot all of these jumps are being precision cut like a diamond would be cut which makes them also very unique take a look at this the largest ever extraterrestrial faceted wow and this stone has a value of right around 25 000 wow these expeditions are expensive and they've got to be funded my issue is if we find something new and amazing here i don't want to see him then go dump in a vat of acid while i stand there and go ah jeff wants to preserve any potential alpha fines while steve wants to melt them down in acid for the valuable gemstones locked inside there's no way jeff is going to be able to win an argument with me when one or two gemstones are worth more than the whole rock jeff and steve can argue values all day long but first they have to find something so it's back to the strewn field and location number five a huge area that is perfect to test the bike and its high-tech gps mapping system all their hopes now rest on their new toys the trimble tractor gps allows us to see exactly where we are on a visual readout but it also paints a yellow swath across the green background the yellow represents the parts that we've covered almost 90 minutes into the gridding of location number five the guys get a big hit near a fence line oh hey right there you got something something strong something strong this field is full of meteorons we're driving along we get a signal it's like okay is it a meteorite or isn't it cause we don't know there's the strong good bell curve like we like it really yeah it's awfully close to the fence though you know that usually means a big pile of barbed wire buried underground oh shut up right in here [Music] that sounds really good starting to pick it up right there right there that's the big one jeff wow i want to see if the f75 picks it up when we get a really good target i try not to get too excited about it because when you dig down and then it's just a pipe or a plow blade it's pretty disappointing i've done this so many times i just don't let the excitement get hold of me too early on but when we're down a foot and we find a little weird-shaped thumb sticking out of the ground you just know it's the real thing it's too alien it's too imperfect too asymmetrical to be a man-made thing it's partly triumph yeah we were successful we found a space rock it's great but for me it's more than that there's a connection with the mysterious mechanisms of the universe we're actually liberating this buried visitor from space and it's a kind of a profound moment for me it's it's quite magical don't damage my rock hammer where the guys are digging now is about a mile north of where they found the 109 pound meteorite by their calculations this is exactly where a bigger rock could have landed i said it seems to be taking up a lot of the area but i'd say we're right on the money this ground is so dense but the good news is once we start getting down into the really densely packed soil it's less likely to be a man-made object the deeper we go the better it looks anything that's man-made is usually going to be pretty close to the top as evidenced by the media wrongs that we've already dug up on this expedition they were all pretty shallow within three or four inches would you say oh yeah or on top oh i heard something oh that sounds very solid the sound of that metal of the shovel against the metal on the target there's not a sweeter sound around look at that got a magnet yes i do meteorites are composed of olivine and metallic iron if a magnet sticks to the rock they just uncovered chances are jeff and steve have struck meteorite gold and all of a sudden the heart starts racing and and you see that little knob sticking up and it's just got that distinct look oh that looks very promising we knew it was a meteorite right away do i see crystals glinting in the sunlight there the meteorites from this stream field are pallasites and they're packed full of olivine crystals so the glinting in the sunlight is also looking very encouraging i'm trying not to get too excited yet but oh there i'm feeling something hard down there as well yeah yeah that's looking very much like a meteorite at the moment i'm hitting a hard surface here okay and we're using plastic trowels now we've switched from the metal shovels because first of all we want to treat this meteorite respectfully and also it may well contain clusters of crystals and if we hit one of those clusters with the metal shovel we could just fracture them so we're going to excavate this very carefully with plastic travels so we don't do any damage [Music] oh magnet that's not if that's still it over there i don't know ooh i think it is [Music] oh yes the really exciting thing about these meteorites is they're unlike any others ever found on earth it's one of the rarest of the rare what separates the alpha meteorites from other palestines found around the world is the pristine quality of the olivine crystals within in most palestines the crystals shatter upon impact with an asteroid for reasons no one can figure out the rocks found at alpha survived their journey with the crystals largely intact which makes them perfect for faceting into pricey pieces of jewelry the largest one we found when jeff and i were here together last was 109 pounds and so this is downstream a little ways so we're expecting it to possibly be bigger jeff and steve suspect this meteorite is going to be larger because of where it is in the strewn field meteoroids can come in from any direction but the laws of physics will tend to have the smaller ones drop off first and the larger ones carry on farther so we use the terminology downstream that's big seriously that's over a foot down jeff i think we've got a monster on our hands yeah look at the size of that this is the biggest thing we found in some long time ah we've got most of the mud away from the sides now hey we got a winch on this thing but the winch is on the front and the bike doesn't go in reverse but i think the winch will go i think it switches to the back really that winch goes on front or the back oh nice the guys reconfigure the winch is that going to be enough but doubt it's strong enough to pull the iron rock out of the ground where scientists believe it's been entombed for several thousand years will the motorcycle move the meteorite well i'm gonna go as slowly as i possibly can sorry about that oh that motorcycle is a powerful machine and this demonstrates how that rock is really sucked into the [Music] ground [Applause] oh wow it was so amazing you lost your hat oh [Music] oh it's huge what we discovered today is that finding a meteorite is one thing getting it out of the ground is another thing many times we just find a rock on the surface and boom it's done but today we're digging and we're uncovering it it's getting bigger and bigger and we spent hours working on it in the hot sun actually hours and it just flies by the time flies by so quickly because you're so excited and you're uncovering a treasure bit by bit but i wasn't prepared to be spending half the day digging today i thought we're going to be out here on the bike gridding all day looking for targets yeah we get one and what a nice inconvenience to have it's a monster it is actually this has got to be one of the biggest alpha stones ever found yeah it's easily over 200 pounds i would bet it's 250. it's kind of a profound moment i'm i'm interacting with the mechanics of the universe here the processes that that brought this rock to earth and kept it buried there for thousands of years are grand and mysterious and so in that moment there's nothing else in my life that compares to that i can't really explain exactly to someone what it's like to uncover one of these visitors but it's mystical and it's great one two three go if jeff had his way all of these rocks would end up in his collection but there's no question in my mind this rock is going to be made into gemstones success jeff and steve are still at odds over what to do with the gemstones inside this newest find to get a better look at what they've got they head to a local car wash we're really keen to get the mud off and see what it actually looks like this is when we find out whether or not it's rich in the olivine crystals i feel like ghostbusters okay here we go this happens once out of many many expeditions we may never find a rock that big again for the rest of our lives so today's a triumph wow ah look at these beautiful color i mean one of the most fantastic moments is when we actually clean it off and get to see it in all its beauty and it's better than you expected oh look at all the olivine in here wow it's loaded with crystals do we want to wax it it's difficult to assess the value of of one of these alpha palace sites palace lights are rare they're very valuable they're highly desired by collectors look at that one right there look at that big crystal sticking out it's amazing but for steve the value of this meteorite lies with the crystals inside if there's one carrot of gemstones for every pound that's 200 carats at 5 000 a carrot that's a million dollar rock this looks like there's a crack yeah where rust is started on the inside and it's working its way out here's one down here too and so uh i think it's terminal oh that's your opinion we'll see now that the space rock is clean the guys are eager to find out it's actual weight they suspect it's a lot bigger and worth a lot more than their 109 pound find its weight will be a major factor in determining whether to dissolve it for gems or leave it in its original condition we're here at the local grain elevator trying to determine how much this rock weighs we want to know how much this thing's worth this is the way we find out it's kind of a quiet place here and then when you get a meteorite coming in probably the strangest thing has happened all year here well it's over a hundred just a normal rock it looks like to me it's a little bit heavier kind of cool to see that these are in the ground all around here deep in kansas jeff and steve have unearthed a massive meteorite buried in a cow pasture [Applause] it is the find of a lifetime the rock is a rare stoney iron palace site filled with gem quality olivine crystals so let's just set her up jeff and steve have estimated its weight at around 200 pounds which is double the size of the 25 000 meteorite they found in 2008 if their new find is over 200 pounds it could be worth more than 50 000 we want to know how much this thing's worth this is the way we find out 223 final weight is 223 pounds making this not only the largest alpha stone that steve and i have ever found but it's almost exactly double the weight of the next largest one that we found 109 pounds our previous record 223 pounds this one it's pretty fantastic that's a lot of space rock big ole rock because steve noticed some rust and a few cracks on the meteorite he's ready to harvest the space rock for its gemstones jeff still wants to preserve it i'm pretty confident we've got at least 100 carrots at 5 000 a carat that's a half a million dollars in the high quality and then we got the medium and lower quality this is pretty easily a one million dollar rock the guys transport the rock to the arizona state university lab for analysis asu has the largest meteorite collection of any school in the united states we're looking at a slice at the alpha meteorite ah this is interesting beginning to see rust rust is an indication that the meteorite is rapidly deteriorating the sample really has disintegrated and uh you know you can see that it's just falling apart so this really once you broke yeah i didn't nature did these meteorites tumble through space for billions of years but once they hit the earth the moisture and oxygen in the atmosphere begin an unyielding assault on the iron in the rock which will eventually destroy it the guys estimate that one out of a hundred crystals are facetable gemstone quality but there's no guarantee and dissolving the rock could leave them with nothing the meteorite as a whole is worth about 50 000 jeff and steve have two options they can mine the meteorite's valuable olivine crystals or try to preserve it as it is this one is special it should be on a pedestal in a museum where people can enjoy it for generations to come get those crystals freed up the choice juicy ones are going to get faceted they're going to be put in jewelry and people all over the world are going to enjoy this rock for decades to come before making a final decision jeff and steve agree to test the special acid solution on a smaller piece of another alpha meteorite they found three years ago so we've got the acid working on the meteorite speeding up what nature is going to do anyway the meteorite will soak in the acid for two weeks five days in the test meteorite is almost a third of its original size as the olivine crystals fall off the rock they're scooped out of the tank these are pretty nasty when they come out of here but then we get them all cleaned up and wash them and neutralize the acids on them a week into the process and already hundreds of the little green crystals have been collected the alpha meteorite is really one of the most beautiful palace sites when it's cut and polished it displays a fabulous assortment of crystals of all shapes sizes and colors that one looks pretty clean there's no question in my mind this rock is going to be made into gemstones it's got the most beautiful gemstones in the world in it it's in a matrix of iron that rusts away like a cancer after a lengthy debate on the future of the meteorite jeff and steve come to an agreement we will not do anything destructive to the rock for one year during that time we're going to try and find a buyer or a museum or university that's interested in acquiring the stone and steve agreed that if we can find someone who will pay a fair price for it we will consider taking that course of action for now the guys have a fifty thousand dollar alpha rock but someday in the future the rock they pulled from a field in kansas could yield them up to one million dollars these gemstones came from outer space between mars and jupiter formed four and a half billion years ago what it took for these to form and what it took to get these to this field is just unbelievable most people alive on the planet today will never find a meteorite they're so rare in that moment when when you uncover the first part and you stick the magnet on and then you just know in your heart that it's it's real it's really from outer space we got one pretty sweet today's been a winner this uh this will live on for my memory for what for light years when we started off on day one here at alpha we were basically using the same techniques we've used before we've got the truck we've got the big meteorite detector we're getting lost out here things aren't working and then it's almost like the cosmos decided to pitch in and help us paul senior arrives with the fantastic new motorcycle all of these things came together all of these new tools combined tip the scale in our favor the gps system really let us see where we were going what ground we covered what we hadn't seen and then there's a nice little twist at the end when we we find the big rock and we can't get it out of the ground steve goes hey there's a winch on the motorcycle and that's what saved the day sun's going down managed to get the rock out before dark it was a winner all round there was a lot of hardship getting here but it's a funny thing about what we do when you find what you're looking for all the pain and all the problems that you've endured to get there just vanish [Music] most people alive on the planet today will never find a meteorite it's just the way it is they're so rare so difficult to find them and when we do find something more often than not they're small they're marble-sized walnut-sized great we found a meteorite we get so excited today to excavate a rock of that size is very close to a unique experience for us at the end of the day you look back and you go wow i got up all those mornings at 6am and i drove and i hiked and i dug and then finally the end of four long days or we're almost at the end of the fourth day the sun's going down that's when it pays off and if you can't stick with this if you don't have the determination to just put yourself through the misery day after day after day without complaining then just don't even think about doing it because it takes it takes time and it takes determination and stamina and belief if you don't believe there is going to be a meteorite under that thing one day there isn't going to be because you'll just give up and go home and go i failed i couldn't find anything you got to be dogged

Channel: Meteorite Men

Views: 16,835

Keywords: space rocks, science channel, science channel tv shows, factual tv, science tv shows, meteorite men full episode, meteorites documentary, scientific tv series, meteorite men series, meteorite men season 2, meteorite men, meteorites, meteorite men tv show

Id: ENyA16dr_ko

Length: 47min 30sec (2850 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020