  KGS Home > Earth Science Education Did I find a meteorite?
Stephen Greb and Warren Anderson  Twenty-seven confirmed
meteorites have been found in Kentucky. These are meteorites
that people saw fall, or were found and verified in
laboratories. Many more pieces (100’s to 1000’s) of naturally
occurring iron ores or man-made materials are misinterpreted as
meteorites every year. Be cautious when buying “meteorites” on
the internet or in stores. Make sure they have been
authenticated or verified by a professional research
institution. Most specimens that are brought to labs and
professional meteorite researchers for verification are actually
something else. In Kentucky, most of the brown-red, iron-like
specimens that are brought to the state’s Universities for
identification are man-made iron slag, rather than meteorites.
Shiny, silver-metallic specimens brought in for verification as
meteorites tend to be man-made metallic silica, which is a slag
or byproduct of glass production. Before and during the Civil
War