Star fall

It was early December and a clear sky when a sudden explosion rocked Whanganui.
The people of the city in 1908 had no idea what it could possibly be but it was heard for miles. In fact people - already wary because of events in Europe - had wondered if it might be a submarine off the coast.
But residents of Castlecliff had seen something bright fall from the sky and it was quickly believed to be a meteorite.
Meteorites are actually pretty rare, and it’s even rarer to find ones that were seen to fall to earth.
So when the report came in that something was discovered on the Hawken farm in Mokoia it was immediately interesting.
William Syme of Eastown showed a piece of it to George Reginald Marriner - the curator of the Whanganui museum, saying it was a piece of the meteorite.
He, with three other men, had been working on the railway, near a creek, when thev heard a crackling noise overhead, like a volley from rifles,
The next development was the sound of something falling near the Hawkins's estate, into a pine plantation.
Another piece seemed to fall among some dense bush by a steep hank above a creek.
A third piece was heard falling shortly afterwards, like a piece of rocket. The explosion, which must have occurred at a great height, had distributed the pieces. It fell into the creek with a splashing, hissing sound, like that produced by the immersion in water of hot iron.
The other workman also saw the phenomenon, and saw a flash like a tongue of flame, and what he took to be steam.
The noise was heard distinctly by a number of people in Mokoia.
Marriner subsequently visited the spot, saw the hole, and found two large pieces of meteoric stone embedded which he extracted and put on display.
But any fame he might have had was cut tragically short.
Marriner had been born in Gravesend in Kent 1879 to James and Anna and they came to New Zealand in early 1880.
Always a keen scientific student, he left school and was appointed assistant to a professor of biology at Canterbury University.
In 1908 he was appointed curator of the public museum in Whanganui.
He was a member of the New Zealand scientific expedition to the sub-Antarctic islands and was a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society of Great Britain.
But at only age 30 he developed appendicitis and needed an operation. It did not go well and a second, then third operation was performed but he was unable to recover and died on February 25, 1910.
He is buried in Linwood Cemetery.​