A few years ago I was visiting an antique store in an obscure town in Namibia (Southwest Africa). Namibia is famous for its meteorites. I thought this would be a good place to buy a meteorite and asked the antique dealer if he had any. He produced a 4 inch diameter black rock with what looked like a fusion crust. The rock was mildly magnetic. I figured if it was a real meteorite, it would be worth at least US$ 1000. I paid a 100 Rands for it (US$ 30) which given the potential payback was an acceptable risk. I later had it cut in half with the cut faces polished and brought it to some meteorite experts at NASA Ames. The experts looked at it under various microscopes and did mass spectrogram analysis of it. They concluded that it was NOT a meteorite to my disappointment (that's 100 Rands towards my education). However they did conclude that it was a very weird rock. Anyway after they told me that I had traded the family cow for some magic beans, I asked them if they had any SNC meteorites (Mars meteorites). They said "sure" and pulled one off of the shelf and handed it to me. It looked and felt like a white piece of concrete. I told the expert that I'd like to be a Mars colonist but unfortunately this was probably the closest I would ever get to Mars.

Gary