Space has never not been a part of my life: I landed on the planet at approximately the same time Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, slept with an E.T. alarm clock next to my bed (his heart and finger glowed when the alarm went off and you pushed his head down to shut the alarm off) and I grew up in Houston down the street from NASA.
Field trips were spent going to see the Space Shuttle and eating astronaut ice cream, astronauts came to our elementary school for visits, and we all attended an assembly in the auditorium when the Challenger disaster happened. On a vacation, I remember my whole family standing out on a Florida beach to watch the Space Shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral (it ultimately didn’t launch that day but it was still cool to witness the lead-up and hear the countdown).
So, I’ve never felt a real separation from the extraterrestrial—it’s always felt close. Just right over there. I had no idea until recently that this sense of the closeness of space is actually not a given for everyone—rather, it’s a condition called the Hodges Effect. At least, so says the most recent Tiny Histories guest, Sean Miller.
The Hodges Effect gets its name from the story of one Ann Hodges, the only human ever known to be struck by a meteor and live to tell the tale. The incredible incident happened back in the 1950’s and you can hear all about it on the most recent episode of the podcast, but suffice it to say that the encounter had a profound impact (heh heh) on her life, and in turn, on Sean’s.
Sean’s story begins at the Seattle Art Museum where, before he became Professor Miller and before he became a multi-hyphenate artist-writer-curator-collector-founder-of-museums, he was a tech cleaning the dust off of the art. And like a true artist, he began to work with the medium he had at his disposal: the dust itself. Via a long, windy path from there, Sean encountered the story of Ann Hodges and it both changed his life and brought him back to his own beginnings on Earth and in space. (Did I mention that you can hear the full story in the episode?)
Part of Sean’s journey has been to coin the term “Hodges Effect,” and to create awareness around the relationship between Earthlings and space. He and a group of artists are petitioning the United Nations to declare November 30th Ann Hodges International Meteorite Awareness Day. And they need your help! Make sure to add your signature to the list. And may the Force be with you.