All blessing comes from above. But the seven peat cutters who work at work on this Friday morning 12 June 1840 are very different about the next day. Nicolaas Denissen, Hendricus van Gerven, Johannes van Gerven, Martinus van de Vondervoort, Arnoldus Verwegen, Antonie van Dijk and Hendricus van der Heijden can speak of happiness that they can retell it at all.
It is dry, clear and wonderfully sunny. Not a bad day to put peat outside in an area called the tail, close to Odiliapeel in the municipality of Uden. But slowly but surely something changes in the generally so serene peace that prevails here. Above their head, high in the air, they hear a kind of sound that they can best describe as an ‘increasing shift’.
The noise continues to swell. And then: boom! A cloud with fabric drives up from the Zandpad that is less than fifteen to twenty meters away from them. Martinus is closest. About five meters away, he sees that a round pit of roughly 15 centimeters deep has been created on the spot where a moment before that something has been taken with a huge blow. Are shelling going on? Is the Netherlands attacked by another country and has a cannonball fired?
The men have no idea, but I would like to know what has missed them with thunderous roar except for a hair. They start digging and discover a hefty boulder of a good 700 grams of heavy. The stone is glowing hot and cannot be picked up with bare hands. It turns out to be a meteorite, a piece of rock from the room, with a black cover that you can scrape with your nails.
Nicolaas Denissen thinks it is something. He can exhibit it nicely in his inn in Volkel. His customers have an extra reason to pour their beer into him. De Kei will be a real sight and many a pub visitor would like to hold on to him. And after a few beers that doesn’t always go well. The stone falls and a piece breaks off.
Meteorite van Uden
Municipal secretary Jan Baptist van Erp of the municipality of Zeeland hears of the find, talks to the men whose heads have just been spared by the meteorite and writes down their experiences.
Jan just leaves this special stone in the pub, says Jan a bad plan. He offers the ‘meteorite of Uden’, as he is called, to the governor of Noord-Brabant, Baron AJL van den Bogaerde van Ter Brugge. He decided to donate him to the Provincial Society in Noord-Brabant.
That later became the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch, and still the space key is part of the collection of that museum. At the moment it cannot be admired because the meteorite is not exhibited.
In 2021 the meteorite would return to Uden to be admitted to Museum KRONA in a temporary exhibition, but it was canceled because of Corona. That same year, a monument will be published in honor of the Meteorite van Uden on the renewed Terraveenplein in Odlilapeel in September.
Globe with time capsule
Alderman Ingrid Verkuijlen of the municipality of Uden and Halley youth member Lenn van Schadewijk jointly unveil the artwork That was made by Halley member Anton Valks. It is a globe with an indication of the place where the meteorite ended up. In the Globe is a time capsule with info about the Kei, Observatory Halley, a piece of meteorite and two mouth caps from the coronation age.
The meteorite of Uden is still a special copy. Only 51 of this type have been found all over the earth and no other people witnessed their impact.