Tulsa woman's a one-hit wonder
Tulsa woman's a one-hit wonder

TULSA — Lottie Williams might not be one in a trillion, but scientists believe she's at least one in a million.

While some might be concerned with falling space debris, Williams is the only person on record ever hit by any.

Williams, a Tulsa postal worker who was unhurt when she was struck on the shoulder in 1997 by a piece of space debris, said she would keep her eye to the sky while the military tried to shoot down a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite. Officials said a missile successfully struck it Wednesday night.

In the past 40 years, about 12 million pounds of space junk have survived re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, according to the Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies.

The reason space junk doesn't regularly hit people is simple: About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water.

And on average, there are about 130 people per square mile of land, but people don't take up a lot of room. Far more than 99.9 percent of land is unoccupied by a person at any given time, according to researcher Alex de Sherbinin of Columbia University.

No one place is more prone to space junk than others. Where satellites fall depends on their particular orbit.

The orbital debris center that studies the issue puts the odds of anyone being hurt by a piece of space junk at one in a trillion, saying you are far more likely to get hit by lightning.

Using Columbia University's population density maps, Jonathan McDowell, who runs Jonathan's Space Report, calculated that at the highest possible risk, there's a 1-in-10,000 chance that the dead satellite could hit a person. However, it's probably closer to one in a million, McDowell said.

Williams was hit with a lightweight piece of debris while walking at O'Brien Park in Tulsa about 3:30 a.m.

She said she was with a group of retired people. The group saw what they thought were falling stars, but later Williams learned it was debris re-entering the atmosphere, she said.

"It startled me,” she said.

"It was real dark. I thought it was somebody behind me. I didn't know what it was. It was bothering me real bad, so I kicked it into the light and saw it was burned.”

Williams, who is a fan of science fiction movies, got gloves and picked up the debris. She and the others looked at it in the light of car headlights.

"The lady that was with me thought it was a piece of a space ship; another man thought it was a piece of an airplane,” Williams said.

Williams took the lightweight metal home, but was afraid to have it in the house. So, she put it in the garage.

"I didn't know what it was, or if it had toxic gases in it or what,” Williams said.

"They don't really know if there's life out there or not, you know.”

After calling her local library, Williams finally got in touch with someone at the National Weather Service who said a rocket had re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, but it was not thought to have survived re-entry. Williams said NASA didn't confirm that the debris was from a rocket until 2001.

She still has the piece of debris, hidden away.

A few years ago, her home was broken into and robbers broke the debris but left it at the home.

"People don't know what it is, I think. It just looks like trash,” she said.

"I don't tell anyone where it is now. I have it in a very safe place.”

Contributing: The Associated Press

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