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The Maine Mineral and Gem Museum is offering a $25,000 reward for anybody who brings it a 2.2-pound meteorite.
On Saturday (April 8) afternoon, a large meteor crashed in a remote area of Washington County near the U.S-Canadian border. The meteor created a bright fireball as it fell through the sky, causing a loud sonic boom when it slammed into the ground.
"The best way I could describe it was like a really small red flare or a piece of one part of a firework flare going off," Marissa Wood told the Machias Valley News Observer. "But it was super bright, and it caught my eye, and in three seconds, it was gone."
Darryl Pitt, the chair of the museum's meteorite division, told the Bangor Daily News he hopes that somebody can find a large meteorite fragment to add to the museum's collection.
"When a fireball is sufficiently bright to be seen in broad daylight, it would have been extraordinarily bright had this been at night," Pitt said. "The existence of positive Doppler radar returns — meteorites detected descending through the atmosphere just several miles above ground — assures us there are meteorites waiting to be found."
Finding a 2.2-pound piece of the meteorite won't be easy as the debris field consists of hundreds of square miles stretching between Waite, Maine, and Canoose, New Brunswick. According to NASA, the best place to search for large pieces of debris is near the town of Waite.