I got your e-mail and am very happy that you intend to find out where my rock came from. I have enclosed a short history of the rock and me, which is merely meant to underscore the fact that my experiences tell me that the rock came "from the sky." Everyone of us is made up of the accumulation of our experiences and I am not surprised that you think this rock is not a meteorite. I have not had the experience of examining any other meteorites and you have had the experience of examining many. But please remember, space is a big place and one thing we can say for certain is that we have not seen everything that space has to offer us, so please keep your mind open. Everything I have written you is expressly for the purpose of trying to encourage you to perform enough experiments to conclusively answer the question of the origin of this rock. I understand that I have no right to ask anything of you, but I rely on your natural curiosity to answer this important question.

As much as I appreciate your work on this project, I feel I need to respectfully disagree with some of your conclusions. What I would like to do is to propose to you a particular scenario that I think matches what I have seen in examining this rock. Then I would only ask that you perform sufficient tests to determine if my scenario could be possible or impossible. Of course, the truth lies within the rock, and all I desire is to find the truth. The scenario I propose is that the rock was created as volcanic material on Mars which then covered over a sandy river bed. Such a scenario appears to have occurred on Mars based on the picture on the Internet which describes a likely place of origin for the young SNC meteorites. The picture shows a volcano with a river system leading from its crater down its side. A meteoroid apparently landed in this river plain, which imparted enough energy to cause pieces of material to be given escape velocity.

My understanding is that none of the Mars meteorites represent surface material, since surface material is generally not very cohesive and therefore couldn’t withstand the forces necessary to remove it from the surface and still keep it intact. But volcanic material covering this surface material could easily provide the necessary package to hold together the surface material and allow it an opportunity to make it to Earth.

The first issue I would like to disagree on is the fusion crust. I didn’t look at the piece I sent you under a microscope, but there are many areas on the rock which clearly have been melted to varying degrees. If the rock is volcanic and is unlike any other meteorite you have seen, then wouldn’t its fusion crust be different? I haven’t seen the fusion crust of other meteorites, but I can recognize where this material has been melted. It seems to me that the volcanic nature of this rock would give it insulating properties so that it would fuse its crust in different manners than those rock which are "solid" and would tend to hold in more heat.

The next point is you say that it has no metal. If my scenario is true, then the sandy portion of the rock would represent surface material and the volcanic part would represent material from within the planet. I have already had one test done on the rock and it shows that about 80% of the rock is silicon, but it also shows substantial amounts of magnesium, aluminum, titanium, and iron. I will send you a tif file of this analysis. If the grains of sand could be separated from the volcanic material, I think you would see the volcanic portion of the rock more closely resembles the other Martian meteorites.

Also you say that the color and texture do not match any know meteorites. Please remember that we have yet to see everything. If this does prove to be from Mars, I think I can promise you this will be the most exciting meteorite ever found. Again, all I want from this situation is to find the truth. The reason I write this is to hopefully motivate you sufficiently that you will run all tests necessary to determine beyond a reasonable doubt the origin of this rock.

I know that you don’t know me from Adam and have no way of determining if what I say is true or not. I would be glad to provide you with references, but of course, the truth lies within the rock and that is what is important. Thank you for all the work you have done and may yet have to do. I appreciate your open minded approach to this problem.