SYLACAUGA, Ala. -- The Air Force agreed today to return a meteorite to a 31-year-old housewife who was badly bruised when the 10-pound object crashed through the roof of her home.
A spokesman at Maxwell Air Force Base near Montgomery, where the meteorite was taken immediately after it came to earth Tuesday, said the fragment will be returned to Mrs. Hewlett Hodges just as soon as the Air Defense Commercial completes tests on it. He said the Air Force had no intention of entering into a controversy over it.
Her husband, meanwhile, employed a Talladega, Ala., law firm to file suit against "whatever party has it" if it is not returned in a reasonable time.
The Maxwell spokesman said the object was sent to End Air Force Base at Colorado Springs, Colo., for further tests. He explained that the Air Defense Command was interested in all unusual objects that fall from the sky and wished to make complete tests on the meteorite.
The meteorite apparently was a fragment from a larger object which exploded some 40 miles above the earth and was seen by persons in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.