[meteorite-list] Juancheng Detail

[Darryl Pitt]

Perhaps the coolest thing about Juancheng is the spiritual hammering  
of Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiao Peng.  (Cribbed from a natural  
history catalog):


On February 15, 1997, while it was still Valentine’s Day in the US,  
meteorites rained down on China’s Shandong Province piercing the roofs  
of several homes. As result of CNN coverage of the event, Chinese  
meteorite and fossil dealers flocked to the site only to be met by  
hundreds of schoolchildren. Juancheng meteorites instantly became an  
important collectible in China, as this event was believed to have  
foreshadowed the death of Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiao Peng.  
Said a Chinese man who journeyed to the Juancheng site, “Our Leader  
protects us from all frontiers, and when the sky-tissue which  
separates us from the heavens is torn by a rain of stones, it is time  
for Our Leader to go and protect us from his new home in the heavens.”  
Chairman Deng apparently subscribed to this point of view and died  
several days later. While many large specimens of Juancheng were given  
to Communist Party Leaders, tens of kilos of smaller material still  
made it to the West.