Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Space

The Mystery of the Flaming Hand Meteorite

The Mystery of the Meteorite “The Flaming Hand”

The mysterious meteorite “The Flaming Hand,” suspiciously resembling a severed human hand, fell more than a hundred years ago on a farm in New Jersey, and it remains unclear to this day what exactly it was. In February 1916, in the town of Egg Harbor, farmer Henry Prantl and his wife were sitting on the porch of their farmhouse, grieving the death of their youngest son, 18-year-old Rudolf, who had died of pneumonia after a long illness. The family was very poor, and they were mourning, in part, due to their inability to afford a grave marker for their son, as they barely had enough money for food.

Suddenly, around ten o’clock in the evening, they heard a loud explosion, and the night sky was illuminated by a bright white flash. Something had exploded just near their house, around 30 meters away, and John, the older son, quickly saw that there was a small fire in the field. When John ran toward the spot, he immediately recognized what he called a “hand” because it resembled a human hand with very long fingers, and it even seemed to move slightly at the moment he observed it.

The size of the hand was never mentioned, but it seemed to be about the size of an average human hand. The “hand” appeared to be made of metal, and a small flame was still burning on its “wrist” when John tried to lift it, but he dropped it immediately after burning his hand. The family waited several hours for the fire to go out and for the “hand” to cool, before they finally retrieved it and took it inside.

“The Flaming Hand,” as it came to be known, appeared to be a piece of a meteorite, though in an unusual form. It was very light and had no odor. The large and index fingers were much longer than human fingers, and on some of the fingers, there were suspicious markings resembling nails. All other fingers, except the large and index fingers, seemed to be tightly clenched, as if frozen in a cramp, and their tips were slightly curled inward. The “wrist” appeared unusually thin, and, with some imagination, it looked as though “charred bones” could be seen inside.

In the following days, many people visited the Prantl family home, having heard of their strange find. Among the visitors were metal experts, but none could identify what the “hand” was made of. The family was so overwhelmed with visitors that they were unable to perform farm work as someone was constantly coming by to see the “flaming hand.”

They began to wonder if this strange “hand” could be a sign from their deceased son Rudolf. “I know he shouldn’t have died. Some say Rudolf hasn’t moved on to the other side. They say this ‘hand’ could be a message from him. This ‘hand’ now holds special meaning for me,” said Gottlba Prantl, the farmer’s wife, in an interview with journalists.

Over time, Gottlba became convinced that the “hand” was a message from her son and that the long index finger pointed accusingly at the doctors who couldn’t save him. The Prantls decided to keep the “hand” as a family relic and, despite their poverty, refused to sell it for even $1,000 to two visitors from Philadelphia. Later, however, they allowed people to pay to see the “flaming hand” at a fair in Atlantic City: “Mr. T. Vistar Grukett and Thomas Irish brought this miracle of the 20th century to Atlantic City for a large fee and displayed it for public viewing for a symbolic payment,” reported the local Sandy Gazette on May 28, 1916.

The origin of this phenomenon remains a mystery, though it is likely that the meteorite was a siderolite (a stone-iron meteorite), with a hypothesis that it could have been a fulgurite – an object formed from sand, quartz, and other materials after a strong lightning strike. However, the fair was soon fined for “excessive noise,” and by the following year, its owners had moved the exhibit to other cities, while the “flaming hand” seemingly disappeared from history. There were no further mentions of it in the press.

In the spring of 1917, the Prantl family sued the doctors, still trying to “get justice” for their son’s death, and during several hearings, the “flaming hand” was mentioned. It is believed that it ultimately remained with the Prantl family as a relic. Unfortunately, the Prantls were unable to prove the doctors’ guilt in the death of their son, but their later lives were relatively prosperous. Henry Prantl and his wife Gottlba lived to the ages of 88 and 84, respectively, and all their children survived and started families of their own.

Some UFOlogists speculate that the object that fell from the sky that day may not have been a meteorite but rather the hand of an extraterrestrial being, after its ship exploded.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Copyright © 2024 ExtraTerrestrial