Indonesian man becomes overnight millionaire after meteorite falls through his roof

An Indonesian man becomes a millionaire in a bizarre occurrence after a meteorite worth around £1.4 million crashed through his home roof. 

The 33-year-old coffin maker Josua Hutagalung was working on a coffin outside his house in Kolang when the 2.1kg rock came crashing through the tin veranda outside his living room, reports The Independent. 

Hutagalung found the piece of space debris by digging into the soil in his garden.  

"The sound was so loud that parts of the house were shaking too. And after I searched, I saw that the tin roof of the house had broken," said 

"When I lifted it, the stone was still warm," the coffin maker added. 

The meteorite is carbonaceous chondrite, an extremely rare variety estimated to be 4.5 billion years old and reportedly worth around £645 per gram.

Hutagalung sold the rock to US meteorite expert Jared Collins – who then sold the item to a US collector, currently storing it at the Centre for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University. 

Although the coffin maker did not give the precise purchase sum, it is understood to be over £1 million.

Hutagalung revealed he now had enough to retire and plans to build a church in his community.

"I have also always wanted a daughter, and I hope this is a sign that I will be lucky enough now to have one," he said.

Collins said, "My phone lit up with crazy offers for me to jump on a plane and buy the meteorite. It was in the middle of the Covid crisis and frankly it was a toss-up between buying the rock for myself or working with scientists and collectors in the US.

"I carried as much money as I could muster and went to find Josua, who turned out to be a canny negotiator."

Thomas Djamaluddin, the head of Indonesia's National Aeronautics and Space Agency, told local media it was rare for such a large piece to fall in a residential community.

"Most of the meteorites fall in locations far from settlements, such as oceans, forests, or deserts," he added.