The Port Orford , Oregon, meteorite hoax

jeff of pa

Super Moderator
Staff member
Dec 19, 2003
87,984
62,297
🥇 Banner finds
1
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
1
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 15 Aug. 1938.

000aaa.jpg
000bbb.jpg
000ccc.jpg
000ddd.jpg
000eee.jpg
000fff.jpg
000ggg.jpg
000hhhh.jpg

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...xt=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=29

Probably a Hoax, But Mountains are big areas.



The Port Orford meteorite hoax concerns a 19th-century claimed meteorite discovery near Port Orford, Oregon in 1856. The meteorite has attracted the interest of meteorite hunters, with a value reported as high as $300 million.The mountain of Evans' claimed find has been tentatively identified as Johnson Mountain from Evans' reports and field notes; surveys of the area with sensitive proton magnetometers in the 1980s failed to show evidence of a nickel-rich meteorite there.Dr. John Evans, a medical doctor and government-appointed geologist working for the United States Department of the Interior, claimed to have found a 10-ton (10,000 kg) pallasite meteorite in coastal Oregon (then Oregon Territory) on a "bald mountain" above Port Orford in 1856. Evans returned a sample to the East Coast, but he died of pneumonia in 1861 before the discovery could be corroborated.It has been reported as a hoax, with modern metallurgical and other analysis showing that a 28 gram specimen collected by Evans was actually part of the Imilac Chilean meteorite of 1822 and probably acquired by him in Panama on his return to the United States East Coast. The mountain of Evans' claimed find has been tentatively identified as Johnson Mountain from Evans' reports and field notes; surveys of the area with sensitive proton magnetometers in the 1980s failed to show evidence of a nickel-rich meteorite there.
 

The Willamette meteorite (named for the small town of Willamettte, just outside of Oregon City) did not "land" there, Jeff. It was transported there by an iceberg during one of the 100 or so Bretz floods, which created the Columbia River Gorge. It probably came from Idaho or Montana, probably dropped (accoring to a geologist I know) during one of the lat6ter Missoula floods (another name for the Bretz floods), which dropped lots of "glacieal erratics" mush further south in the Willamette Valley. BTW, there is another meteorite which I am hoping to find that came down in the 1890 erra, much further south, Once I find it, it will be the largest currently known in the world: bigger than the Hoba, even.
 

Sparsely distributed through the general area, roughly from Bandon, Oregon, to Eureka, California, pockets high in nickel can be found. Some boulders high in nickel can also be found. A bit inland, near the town of Riddle, was once a producing nickel mine. I suspect that what was found was a boulder high in nickel, or at least enough to show positive on a field test.

Time for more coffee.
 

A few things to know.dick Pugh of cascade meteorite portland state. Proved it not to exsist through microprobe spectrometry. He told me that to my face! Not sure how that works. 2nd there is a copy of dr Evan's journals at the coos bay library. 3rd 1/5 of the u.s.a. gold hit the bottom of the oceans floor on the USS central America. Causing a tension. Causing dr Evan's to go into debt. Not some bs reason to scam government out of money. Common sense should prevail. 4 if someone knows how to correctly place the longitude and latitude given in association with the port orford meteorite for 9 am 160 ago I think it would be spot on give or take a couple of feet. 5 u of o has areal photos that go back to 1928 I think I'm hoping to show if they exsist photos of the bulldozer push where it is not now. And have a lead to the name of the operator who pushed it into a pond. If I can put that person on that property. In the thirtys. And I know it was salvaged logged then and was the first year cats were able to push. I'll go to local reporter again and ask him to write my story
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top