The Green Glass from the Sky
In the fields of southern Czechia, people find pieces of bottle-green glass, wrinkled and pitted. They were thrown there by a giant impact hundreds of kilometres away.
What was reported
Moldavite is a natural green glass found mainly in South Bohemia, in the valley of the Vltava (Moldau in German), which gives it its name. The pieces are translucent, deep olive or bottle-green, with sculpted, rippled surfaces.
Stone Age people collected it, and pieces have been found in a 25,000-year-old site with the Venus of Willendorf. Today it's prized as a gemstone, and some believe it has special powers.
Explanations offered
About 15 million years ago, an asteroid struck what is now southern Germany, creating the Ries crater around Nördlingen. Molten rock was blasted into the air and fell as glass hundreds of kilometres to the east. It's a tektite, a natural impact glass.
- When
- Formed about 15 million years ago
- Where
- South Bohemia, Czech Republic
- Witnesses
- Collectors since the Stone Age
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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