The Fall:

• The Fall was recorded as being 1516 A.D. in Nantan (now spelled Nandan) County's archives. It is recorded: "Zhengde (emperor in the Ming Dynasty, 1516 A.D.) 11th year, summertime in May, (Chinese lunar calendar; sometime in June for the western calendar) stars fell down from a northwest direction, five or six-fold (about 16-20 meters or 18-22 yards) long, waving like snakes and dragons, bright like lightning; then they disappeared in seconds."

Locality:

• Lihu Town and the Ladan and Baya area. It was distributed in a northwesterly direction over an area of 27-28 kilometers (16.8-17.4 miles) long and 8 kilometers (5 miles) wide. The Dong and Yao nationalities, two of the 55 ethnic minorities in China, inhabit this area.

1st Find:

• In 1958, China needed lots of steel for constructing "New China." Everyone was told to find iron ore. During this time even cooking woks were melted to produce steel. Meanwhile, the people in Nantan felt lucky to find heavy rocks rich with iron. Unfortunately, the "iron rocks" would not melt. This puzzled the people causing them to send a report to the Chinese central government. Geologists arrived to inspect the rocks and discovered that the rocks were iron meteorites.

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