When I returned I decided to share what my research had revealed with my friend Phil Mani. When I finished telling it all to him, I said, "I really think there is something there waiting to be found." Phil shot back with, "I know there is -- when are you going?"
 
I told him that money was a little tight right now and hunting Brenham would require special equipment, money to get there, money to stay there, and then I would not be making any money doing other things when I was there. He bluntly responded: "What is it going to take?"
 
We came to an agreement to partner in the project. The next part was to get permission from Mr. Binford to search his property. So I called him, told him I was a meteorite hunter and that I thought there might be some meteorites on his property. I asked for permission to hunt. He said, "Come on up, but you better hurry as I am going to be planting wheat in a couple of weeks and once it is planted you will have to wait until next summer to hunt after it is harvested."
 
I got back with Phil and we decided to jump on the opportunity immediately. In making the plans, Phil said, "If we are going to do this, we should do it right." For those of you who don't know Phil, he is a geologist and an oil and gas attorney. Phil mentioned that in the oil and gas business, if there is a promising area to explore, the prudent thing to do is to go and get exclusive lease agreements for the site you want AND all the adjoining properties as well. 

So that is what we did. 

When we arrived, we discovered that a precedent had been set seventy-odd years earlier by Nininger, and then again with Stockwell in the 1940s. Both Nininger and Stockwell agreed that they would give a percentage of any Brenham finds with the land owners. This precedent gave us only one option: if we were going to be allowed to hunt, we'd have to pay the landowners cash up front for exclusive hunting leases, as well as a large percentage of anything we might find. We quickly realized that we had to cut the landowners in, or WE would be cut out. 
 
Remember, this is not only farm land, there is oil and gas under this land as well. The farmers we've met are business savvy people. I have invested nearly two months building relationships with my new neighbors, and I am proud to have them "on our team."
 
Since we were preparing to invest mutliple tens of thousands of dollars -- and hundreds of hours -- into the project, we set up these leases to protect both the landowners and our investment. With wheat planting about to begin, we had to hurry -- not only to get the leases, but to start hunting as well. 
It wasn't long after I started searching that I found a nice all-iron specimen. This encouraged me to keep hunting and it proved that my hypothesis was correct: there were more out there. 
 
I kept hunting, and about two weeks into it I found a real strong signal. Phil was scheduled to be up from Texas three days later so I held off on calling in the back hoe until he arrived. I was confident that we had a meteorite, but little did I know WHAT a meteorite it was! On Sunday afternoon, October 16, the back hoe arrived and excavation of the greatest find of my life began.
 
Being careful not to scratch the target, we dug a little at a time, with me jumping in periodically to check the spot with my weaker hand-held detector. It would only go down about twelve inches, but it would let us know if the back hoe bucket could safely take out another scoop or two of dirt. We dug two feet or so, and nothing. We dug another two feet, and nothing. Second-guessing my original signal, we had the back hoe pull away and we went over the area again with the big detector. The strong signal was still there under the empty hole. 
 
This was encouraging as it indicated a large specimen that had penetrated deep into the ground. We dug another couple feet, and still no signal from the hand-held. Again we rechecked, and again the big detector said something was there. About 64 inches down I ran the hand held over the center of the hole and got a strong beep. A shovel was handed to me. I stuck it into the dirt and was greeted with the ever-so-sweet "tink" of the metal spade contacting with the evasive target we were searching for. 
 
The plan was to dig out around the specimen to determine how big it was and how we would get it out of the ground. If it was small enough to fit into the back hoe bucket, I would just roll it in, if not we would have to tie it with a towing strap and drag it out. Finding the edges of the meteorite quickly revealed that we had a monster on our hands. Maybe not as big as the 1,000 pound specimen found by H.O. Stockwell in 1949, but it could be.  
 
The top of the meteorite proved to be very rough, with great character, not rounded like most Brenhams. "Gnarly" was the word that came to mind. But a three-foot by two-foot gnarly rock was fine with me. We didn't know how deep the rock went, but the sides seemed to be sloping in enough that we could get the strap around it secure enough to lift out. I figured we had a thin rock, maybe ten inches across, that might weigh 800 or 900 pounds.
 
We got the strap around it and the back hoe started to lift. Screaming, the back hoe was not able to lift the rock extended as it was. An adjustment had to be made by the operator -- he pulled the bucket in closer so the larger hydraulics would be doing the lifting. After possibly thousands of years of being trapped in the soil, the rock was once again airborne.
 
The "bunker buster" as we were calling it was being hoisted up. It slowly started to rotate in its swing. Phil saw it first and he could not contain his excitement. He hollered out over the noise of the diesel engine: "It's oriented Steve, it's oriented!"
 
Indeed it was. I was in shock.
 
It was obvious that this specimen was much bigger than the old 1,000 pound main mass. It had a gorgeous nose cone facing down, with what was now -- clearly -- a concave back side. We had found the world's largest oriented pallasite! An hour or so later, we took Mr. Binford's pick-up truck to the scales at the grain elevator and weighed the truck without the meteorite. We then put the meteorite in the back of his truck and weighed it again. The weight was 1,430 pounds, or exactly 650kg: 43% larger than Stockwell's biggest. 
 
All of a sudden the nick name "bunker buster" didn't seem appropriate. Many will always consider Esquel to be the "Queen of the Pallasites" and rightfully so. And so, a few days after the excavation, the name "King of the Pallasites" struck me as a more fitting title for this majestic specimen.
 
So now what?
 
Well, we are promoting the "King" via the media. The news story has taken off even more than we expected. It has spread far beyond the coffee tables in Kiowa County, Kansas, and the conversations of meteorite collectors. We have been featured on the NBC "Today" show, The Discovery Channel, The Weather Channel, ABC, CBS, in the MSNBC.com science section and in over 100 newspapers around the world. Stories about our find have appeared as far away as England, Germany, India, and Australia, as well as every major city in America. 
 
While we are promoting this rock to sell, I am also going to continue hunting. I am determined to find the full extent of the strewn field. Due to the amount of land we have leased, that is going to take a long time. I bought a small house in Kiowa County recently, and I'll be working out of there. It is a long term project I have committed myself to.
 
Some people may want to hunt at Brenham to try and find their own meteorites, and I don't blame them. However, due to the tremendous financial investment and investment of time that have made, we are not able to have people hunt in the area with us at this time. Our long-term exclusive hunting leases have been made with all the available land owners within the known strewn field, and then some. 
 
We intend to keep the "King of the Pallasites" intact and in one piece. It is our hope that a museum or major institution here in the United States will be able to acquire the meteorite, and display it in fitting surrounding. Please contact us if you are interested in helping make that happen.

Steve Arnold