An Oklahoman is believed to be the only human to have ever been hit by falling space junk.

 

An Oklahoman is believed to be the only human to have ever been hit by falling space junk.

On January 22, 1997, Lottie Williams was out for a casual stroll when the sky fell on her head.

A six-inch fragment from a NASA rocket had somehow survived re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, and Lottie was unfortunate enough to be out walking in Tulsa when it did.

Fortunately for Lottie, the debris was traveling at such low speeds that it just glanced off her, and she walked away uninjured.

While NASA never confirmed that the piece of debris was theirs, they ensured that the story’s timeline fitted with one of their rockets that had just broken up while re-entering the atmosphere.

It’s the only known story of such an event occurring.

In terms of absolute tornado counts, the United States leads the list, with an average of over 1,000 tornadoes recorded each year. Canada is a distant second, with around 100 per year. Other locations that experience frequent tornado occurrences include northern Europe, western Asia, Bangladesh, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, South Africa, and Argentina. In fact, the United Kingdom has more tornadoes, relative to its land area, than any other country. Fortunately, most UK tornadoes are relatively weak.