Perhaps the most-famous meteoriticist of all time is Dr. Harvey Harlow Nininger (1887–1986). His fascination with meteorites started when he witnessed a fireball in 1923. Nininger, a biologist, yearned for the opportunity to collect and research meteorites as a full-time endeavor in lieu of his college professorship. He spent most of his career at McPherson College in Kansas. Unfortunately, he lived in an era when most scientists ridiculed those who recovered, studied, and researched meteorites for delving into an area then considered of little or no scientific use.

Harvey Harlow Nininger was the father of the science of meteoritics. He amassed a vast collection of meteorites by spreading the word to common folk that he would pay cash for “strange and unusual” rocks. // Photo courtesy Aerolite MeteoritesRegarding space rocks, Nininger was self-taught. Throughout his illustrious career, he assembled the world’s largest personal collection of meteorites. His recovery work and research led to the revival of the science of these objects. He loved to talk meteorites, anywhere and anytime, to anybody who would listen. Nininger himself noted that he had given hundreds of lectures through the years: in colleges, elementary and high schools, and even at Carnegie Hall. I don’t know many people in astronomy (and especially meteorite research) who have pulled that off.

Nininger also visited farmers and ranchers, inquiring about unusual rocks they might have found. He later revisited the individuals, often being rewarded with a new find. He adopted a successful method, offering to purchase meteorites others had found. Most farmers and ranchers cleared their fields of rocks anyway. But to perhaps make some extra cash, they would go back to those rock piles and look for unusual specimens like those Nininger had described and showed to them.

Initially, Nininger found no financial support for recovering meteorites, so he financed his own endeavors and became a full-time meteoriticist in 1930. His recoveries, part of which he sold to earn an income, became the cornerstone of his collection.

In his autobiography, Find a Falling Star, he wrote, “The Paragould meteorite had profound effects on our lives. I have never ceased to regret parting with it, but I had paid a price too high, and was forced to give up either the specimen or my dream of making meteorites a new vocation. And Paragould, with the $ 2,000 profit it brought, was the way to my dream.”

In 1946, Nininger and his wife, Addie, founded the American Meteorite Museum, initially near Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona. In 1953, they relocated the museum to Sedona, Arizona, where it remained until 1960. At that time, Arizona State University purchased roughly half of the Nininger collection. Visitors to that campus can still see a selection of his meteorites on display.

In 1933, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, founded the Society for Research on Meteorites. Nininger was the first secretary-treasurer of the group, which included 57 charter members. This organization eventually became the Meteoritical Society, which now boasts 950 scientists and amateur meteoriticists from more than 33 countries.

"A Comet Strikes the Earth" by H. H. Nininger was first published in 1942. Later editions included an oxidized meteorite fragment from the Canyon Diablo (Barringer Meteor Crater) site in northern Arizona. // Michael E. Bakich libraryDuring his illustrious career, Nininger wrote 162 papers and several books. His most-famous books include Our Stone-Pelted Planet (1933), A Comet Strikes the Earth (1942), Arizona’s Meteorite Crater (1956), Ask a Question About Meteorites (1961), and Find a Falling Star (1972).

Collectors consider all of Nininger’s books collector’s items, and some can be difficult to find. My favorite is his autobiography, Find a Falling Star. In the book, Nininger details many of his adventures in meteorite recovery and research. If you can locate — and afford, if you must have a first edition — a copy of Find a Falling Star, buy it. This book will inspire you, as it has done many others (including me).

Harvey H. Nininger was the pioneer of modern meteorite research, and many consider him the father of contemporary meteoritics. He led the way when others thought the science was frivolous. His collecting methods, cataloging, and displaying of meteorites are in many ways still the standard. Nininger truly was a star.

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