My Pet Rock

Part 1

Chapter 1

In the Beginning

The story of the Frass meteorite begins, for me, when I was very young. As small boy, two things were very important to me. The first was God and the second was science and especially space. I was brought up in a Christian home, so a love of God was always in my heart as far back as I can remember. But I can remember the day that space became so important to me.

I was about 8 years old, I guess. All I remember is that we had studied space that day in school. The teacher had pointed out the facts of our solar system and explained how the planets all orbited the sun and that the sun was actually a star. It was just much closer so it looked bigger than all the other stars. This seemed all well and good to me and I let these thoughts ruminate in my brain all that day. Then, after dark, we had to go get my dad from work. As we came back to our house, I remember my mother was driving and my dad was in the front seat and I was setting behind him in the back. I got out of the car and went to walk around the back of the car and low and behold I looked up and saw the stars.

I don’t know if you have ever been to Texas and seen the stars when the air is clear and there is nothing but darkness as far as you can see? The sight can be overwhelming when the moon is down and the sky is filled with stars. I was overwhelmed that night as I looked up and saw that the sky was full of stars and so the question came to me, "How far do they go?" I asked no one in particular I guess, but my mother answered and said "They just go on forever." My love for space started right at that moment. That seemed so right to me that the stars could just go on forever and I have believed it ever since. In essence, what I came to believe that night was the concept of an infinite cosmos. I had been taught about an infinite God and so an infinite cosmos must surely be his home.

I think that as this story unfolds you will come to come to realize how all of us tend to find what we are seeking. I sought infinity and found it. Be careful what you seek, because you are likely to find it if you try hard enough and long enough. So from that day forward, I began to pray that God would send me a piece of space. I never thought I could go there and get some, so my young mind decided that the next best thing to do would be to pray to God to send me a piece. After all, He has so much of it and I had so little.

But as I continued to grow and to study the Bible and to think about space, I began to wonder about miracles. I had read about miracles in the Bible and so another question kept popping into my mind. Do miracles still happen? It seemed to me that science was taking away the possibility that we could have miracles because science never seemed to have any. But I believed in miracles and I believed in science and how could I ever make the two happy together at the same time? Miracles have a big role to play in the story of the Frass meteorite.

As the years went by, I continued to pray two prayers. The first was that God would let me do something important in the world, and the second was that God would send me a piece of space. I always thought that the second prayer was my selfish prayer, but I had been told that it was OK to ask for God for things that were important and believe me, a piece of space was important to me. I kept up these prayers for many years. They must have stopped sometime in my teen years and then I forgot all about all my prayers. Spending time in Viet Nam makes one simplify one’s prayers to those things more closely associated with the important things like staying alive.

Chapter 2

On the Ranch

Now we leap ahead a few years and I am on the Frass ranch. To help you understand this story, I need to tell you about the circumstances surrounding my being at the ranch. I would never want to run for any kind of elected office because I have so many skeletons in my closet that I could’t even close the closet door. But to make a long story short, I was at my aunt’s ranch because she was helping me. I had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and gotten into trouble with the law. I had been at a friend’s house when the police came and busted us for using marijuana. My aunt cared about me and had enough money to pay lawyers and help me get out of the mess that I was in. All of this becomes very important, when later I talk about finding the meteorite. Many of the scientist that I have talked to have tried to imply that the rock I found arrived at the ranch in some manner other than falling from the sky. This story is important, because I can prove to most reasonable people that there was no chance that any other event caused the rock to come to the ranch. Once you understand my circumstances at the ranch, you will understand that I really did not have any opportunity to bring the rock to the ranch or have anyone else bring it to the ranch.

As part of my "rehabilitation" I was required to go see a psychiatrist who spent the better part of an hour talking to me. At the end of the time, all he had to say was that I appeared to be a rebel without a cause. Those words frightened me and I immediately knew that I did not want to be like that. I did not want history to write that I was a rebel without a cause, ...  I had to find a cause. I never minded the part about being a rebel. All I knew was that I had to see things my own way and do what I thought was best, no matter what the rest of society thought.

So the time I spent on the ranch was much like an imprisonment. I had no friends. I was allowed to go no where and all of my time was spent working on the ranch. I don’t know if you have ever worked on a ranch, but the work starts before the sun comes up and it continues until the sun goes down. We usually went into town about once a week to pick up groceries and cattle food and other supplies. But during this time, I was never allowed to be alone with anyone or in any way have time to hatch some kind of plot to bring a piece of lava rock to the ranch. And of course, at night I was not allowed to leave and I was too tired to think about going anywhere anyway.

There is currently much talk about the horse whispering phenomenon. My aunt was a cow whispered. She understood the cattle and almost daily walked among them as she looked at each of them and decided if they were OK. She would make sure the calves were nursing and that none looked sick and that everything was alright in each pasture. We never fed any cattle until all the cows and calves in the pasture were in. This relates to the meteorite, because what she had taught me was to begin looking for the cows as soon as we entered a pasture. I knew that I couldn’t feed any of the cattle until everyone was in and accounted. We knew exactly how many cows and calves were in each pasture and so my job was mostly one of observation. I would spend my time looking at each of the sand hills and dry creek runs and begin seeing where the cattle were located. After a time, one becomes very skilled at seeing the cattle. Many of her cattle were Hereford white faces and that makes them easier to spot. I make these points because some have suggested that I didn’t pay enough attention when I found this meteorite. But the evidence shows that I was a very good observer at the time and was very accustomed to looking about the ranch and finding the cattle, because they stood out from the dry yellow grass that was present everywhere.

More about my aunt explaining what she was like and her value system.

Some have claimed that maybe I didn’t know the ranch and maybe the rock had been there. I would make the claim that I did know the ranch because I had spent many days of my childhood playing on the ranch and I have walked almost every foot of the ranch from one time to another. Maybe an argument could be made that I didn’t know the ranch, but I don’t think anyone could argue that my aunt didn’t know the ranch. She had worked the ranch or lived on it for the last 50 years and I can guarantee that she knew her ranch. I remember more than once being out in the middle of nowhere on the ranch and she would be driving the Blazer and she would stop and tell me to get out. She would say, "There is a big hole right here somewhere and I don’t want to fall into it." Then I would get out and search for a minute or two and sure enough, I would find the hole. That woman knew every inch of the ranch and when we found the meteorite, she, as well as I, was certain that the rock had never been there before.

In the wintertime, the daily routine was almost identical on a ranch like my aunts. Every pasture had to be visited and every cow and calf had to be found before any of the cattle in that pasture could be fed. So the daily routine involved us going from pasture to pasture, looking for the cattle and once they were found and gathered together, we would feed them.

So the second episode of this tale began when we were feeding the cattle sometime in the winter of ’71 or ’72. It was another day like all the rest. We had just finished feeding the Sidna pasture and was making our rounds. The next pasture was called the North Meadow. It was made mostly from the overflow of the dry creek bed which runs through it. On those occasions when lots of rain occurred upstream, the small little valley would flood outside the creek banks and so most of the North Meadow was flat and sandy. As we left the Sidna, the gate was at the south east corner of the pasture. We were heading east through the gate which enters the North Meadow through its southwest corner. The ranch road then continues east for about a quarter to half a mile. Then the road takes a turn and heads basically due north. It was at the point that we made the turn and started North that both of us saw something unusual. Please remember that we had been at that same exact point, looking the same exact direction, the day before and had seen nothing. As a matter of fact, we had been in that pasture almost every day for the last year and of course my aunt had been there most days of the last 50 years.

We both saw the rock at the same instant and my aunt exclaimed, with much surprise, what is that new thing on her ranch. At that moment, my childhood prayers came back to me and I immediately said that it was a meteorite. After all, how else could that rock have gotten to the ranch? It was obvious that the rock had fallen from the sky.

As we approached the rock, I had my aunt stop about 40 feet from the rock and she let me get out to go look at it. I approached the rock very carefully, because I was aware of meteorites and I was also aware that I needed to very carefully examine the situation. I approached within about 15 feet of the rock and carefully took note of my surroundings. One of the things that I wanted to do was to see if there was any indication that someone or something had left the rock at that location. So my first observation was to stop and look carefully around the object on every side.

In the winter time on a ranch, there is much hardship for everyone involved. Not much rain falls in the Panhandle of Texas and the ground was very dry the day I found the rock. As I stood and looked over the scene, I could tell that the ground had not been disturbed in any manner around the rock. The sandy ground was hard packed, making a crust across the whole surface of the meadow. The grass was dead and yellow colored and the rock stood out like a sore thumb. I’m sure that you could see it from a mile in any direction. As I approached the rock, I looked very carefully to see if there was any indication of a hole or place it landed. The only thing I could find was about 18 inches to the due North, was a small indentation that was maybe an inch deep. It looked to me like the rock must have bounced once right before it came to rest. I wondered if it had bounced some more and wanted to look for additional evidence, but by this time my aunt was becoming impatient and she began honking at me. You see, to her, this was just a rock and it was laying on her grass and the cattle needed to be fed, so she didn’t have much interest in the thing. I immediately picked up the rock and carried it back to the Blazer. The first thing I did was ask my aunt if I could have the rock. She said certainly, what would she do with a rock?

There are several things that happened at this point that later have become very significant to me. I have since spent a lot of time thinking about intuition and what part it plays in our lives. When I found this rock, I had several intuitive thoughts that later proved to be very important. These thoughts seemed different than ordinary thoughts. Maybe it was just the way I perceived things, or maybe it was the tiny voice of God speaking in my ear. Whatever the source, I had these thoughts and I have never questioned them since.

The first thought was that my childhood questions now seemed answered. I had prayed for a piece of space and God had delivered it, even though I had forgotten the prayers that I prayed as a child. Surely me finding a meteorite meant that miracles did still occur and that God had blessed me with this one. From that minute on, I started believing in miracles. And this was no ordinary miracle, this was a science and space based miracle. This rock had landed within 2 miles of where I was sleeping and within 20 miles of where I was born. Surely this rock was meant for me and it was my responsibility to keep it intact.

I looked at the rock as we were driving away from the spot where it landed, and I couldn’t help but think "This rock fell from space so anything is possible. It could even have living things from another world riding along inside it." Now don’t think that I thought it had living things in it, but since my world view was of an infinite cosmos, then I just thought that we couldn’t measure the possibilities that this rock my represent. So my second intuitive thought was that anything was possible with a rock from space.

Also, I had the distinct thought that I shouldn’t get the rock wet. I have no reason why I thought that thought. I just had this feeling that it shouldn’t get wet and I never thought about it again, except the times when I was moving the rock from city to city and more than once had to transport it in my trailer. I made sure that the rock was never wet from the moment I found it until the present.

As I looked at the rock, it was obviously made from some kind of lava like material. Within a day or two, my aunt let me go to the library where I looked up meteorites because I wanted to see, for sure, if my rock was a meteorite. The book I looked at said that there should be melting on the outer surface and I could sure see where the thing had been melted. It also said that many times, small particles of silicon would fuse to make little glass like structures and I could see shiny things that looked like small pieces of glass. So since the rock was volcanic, I knew that it had to come from a place big enough to have volcanoes. I don’t know if I knew that Mars had volcanoes or not, but the rock was a red color and Mars has the best spot in the solar system for sending material to Earth, so I decided the rock must be from Mars. I was really kind of disappointed because I knew if the rock was from Mars, it probably wouldn’t be very old. At least not as old as most asteroid floating around in space because they go back to the beginnings of the solar system, 4 or 5 billion years ago. But I hid my disappointment and I accepted the rock as gift from God that proved that miracles still happen in the age of science.

For the last 25 plus years, I have just kept the rock in my closet to remind me that God answers prayers and that miracles still happen. Every once in a while, I would get the rock out when I was in a time of great need or distress. I would just look at the rock and keep my faith even though many times my life would appear to be in great discord.

Chapter 3

Before the Beginning

Even though this story began for me when I was a child and prayed "for a piece of space," the story actually began many years before that. Part of the Frass meteorite is almost 50 million years old and in some way represents the last 50 million years on Mars. But to fully understand this rock, I think we need to go back to the beginnings of Mars and explore what might have led to the making of this rock. My intention is to give my best guess of the history of Mars through the efforts of this book. And then 10 years from the writing of this book, I will write Part 2 and see how well I guessed at the history of life on Mars and for that matter, the rest of the solar system. The Frass rock should teach us much about life on Mars and more importantly, life in our galaxy.

Our solar system is made from the remnants of other solar systems that existed long before us. Suns cycled their energy, which means they eventually end up as some kind of explosion. This tends to disrupt planets, tearing them apart and spewing their guts about nearby space. So I believe the very starting material of our solar system, the asteroids and comets, are the remains of these ancient worlds and thus contain the remains of the life from those other worlds. Life is very tenuous and clings to any hope of survival. Even though mankind tried to sterilize the spaceships sent to the moon, we have later learned that bacterial life from Earth made the trip and remained viable after exposure to space. So I think the evidence is very strong that primitive forms of life can remain viable in space for eons. If this is true, then the entire solar system is probably peppered with life in every nook and corner that it can establish a foothold. Earth was battered by these life forms in its early history and so was Mars. Both planets had early water and so developed life in conformity with the conditions that existed on each world and the availability of energy for each planet.

Things were always different on Mars than they were on Earth. Since Earth is a bigger planet, and since it has a very large moon in relation to the size of the planet, and since it is closer to the sun, Earth has always had more energy than has Mars. This means that the two planets took a diversion early in their history. Earth has always been the water planet, with bits of land moving through the water. Mars was probably the opposite, a planet of land punctuated with bits of water. The organisms on the Earth soon learned to use chlorophyll molecules to take energy from the sunlight. On Mars, the sunlight is not near as intense and I suspect that Martian critters learned to rely more on the chemical energies associated with the volcanic action than the use of sunlight.

Since Mars was smaller and had less energy, the volcanic action on Mars tended to be more regional and more long term. On Earth, a volcano doesn’t have a chance to last a long time. The inner iron core of the planet is spinning faster than the planet and all the variations of crust tend to get moved and overrode through time. Thus on Earth, in essence, the energy of the planet has a global expression. On Mars, especially as the energy waned, volcanic systems remained stable for long periods of time.

Mars has the largest volcano in the solar system. I think this is good evidence of how stable the Martian volcanoes have been. Early in Mars history, when the energy was greater within the planet, the volcanoes were large and stable and covered the planet with layers of their material. This seems to be global since every picture of Mars that I have seen shows these layers in the watercourses where water has eroded away the material to expose the layers.

Where did the water come from? It probably came from the ground much as Earthly water systems work. The volcanic activity would have heated the ground and released the water. As the water rose into the cold Martian atmosphere, it would have frozen into particles that would probably land near their source. Many of the calderas of Martian volcanoes show signs of water coming from their calderas. This water would have remained as a liquid in places where the volcanism heated the surface. Water could have remained in these volcanic systems for long periods of time which would have given life a very stable place to gain a foothold.

It appears to me that what happened over the last billion years on Mars is that the volcanism continued to decline because the planet had used up most of its energy. With the decline in volcanism, came a similar decline in the amount of water on the surface. The vocalism has continued almost to the present and it may still be continuing in very small pockets on the planet. Originally there were large bodies of water, but as time went on, the lakes became ponds and the ponds became little puddles. Life would have followed the water sources and the heat and would have continued to try to adapt to the changing circumstances. Many species would have gone extinct and only those able to adapt to the new dry conditions would survive. These species would adapt those characteristics that allowed them to eventually survive without liquid water. They would learn to get water where they could and to use as little as necessary. This is exactly what life on Earth has done in dry places. But no place on Earth is as dry as all of Mars has become.

Chapter 4

What did I find?

Description of the rock and what is on it

Chapter 5

Was there really a beginning?

View of cosmology comparing single BBE to multiple BBB

Chapter 6

Do Miracles still happen?

List of miracles represented by rock and discussion of miracles in general

Chapter 7

The Challenge of Discovery.

The story of my efforts to get this rock known

Chapter 8

What does all of this mean?

Summary of rock and its importance to mankind