Meteorite stolen from UNM museum

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A very expensive meteorite was stolen before the University of New Mexico's Winter break and the international hunt to find it, worked.

The meteorite was once part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, it crashed onto Earth more than 60 years ago in Siberia. It is a 9490 gram (a little less than 21 pounds), iron-nickel meteorite but is so dense it feels like 50 pounds. The meteorite was a gift to the original Director of the museum from a Soviet scientist during the Cold War.

"Aside from being a great scientific specimen it has great historical value as well," said Director and Curator of the Meteorite Museum, Carl Agee.

It's worth between $20, 000 to $40,000.

Agee unlocked the doors of the museum to show a visitor their well known collection on January.

"As I was showing him around the displays, I was going from display to display describing what we have. And then I came upon this display that was empty," said Agee.

The Sikhote Alin was missing.

The UNM police believe that someone stole the meteorite from the display case and walked out the front door. The alarms weren't working correctly at the time.

Agee had to move fast to find the meteorite and quickly contacted the International Meteorite Association which alerted it's community of collectors from all over the world.
 
By the next morning, Agee got a message that a man in Missouri had bought the rock for $1,700.

The museum paid to fly an employee to the Midwest to retrieve it, lugging it through security.
    
"It stopped the line and caused a big hubbub and three or four agents came over and pulled it out," said Administrative Assistant Leeann Lloyd.

UNM police say they have a suspect but he hasn't been arrested yet. They found him because he used his real name during the transaction, police say the man stole the meteorite for the money.

Agee is glad the thief sold it and didn't toss the evidence overboard.

"He might have ended up throwing it in the bushes or it might have ended up in the bottom of the Rio Grande," said Agee.

The suspect was not a student at UNM and police say he had no records of ever attending the University.

The Meteorite Museum at UNM will be closed to the public until they review their security devices and make sure they're working so something like this doesn't happen again.