Millions of dollars worth of space rocks from the fireball that lit up the Prairie sky last week are sitting in Saskatchewan more than an hour-and-a-half drive farther north than originally presumed, says an avid American meteorite collector.

Robert Haag, an Arizona meteorite collector of roughly 30 years, is convinced the meteorite that streaked across parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan last Thursday crashed to earth north of Lloydminster, Sask. That's more than 115 kilometres north-northeast of where experts initially guessed it fell near Macklin, Sask.

In fact, he's so certain he promised to pony up $10,000 to the first person who finds a kilogram-size chunk of what he calls the "poor man's space probe."

As soon as a piece of this "gift from space" is found, Haag said he'll be on the first plane over to Canada to scour the surrounding area for more.

"There is probably a million dollars worth of it around there," Haag told CTV.ca on Tuesday in a telephone interview Tucson, Arizona.

As eyewitness reports of the spectacular event poured in over the past few days, Haag changed his mind about the co-ordinates where the debris might have fallen, from Macklin to beyond Lloydminster.

He spoke repeatedly with a Mountie on Monday who described what he saw Thursday where he was stationed north of Lloydminster, located along the Alberta-Saskatchewan border.

Another report from a deer hunter and his wife who were stopped for gas several kilometres still farther north, said they saw the fireball directly above their heads. They followed its smoke trail with their eyes as it headed for the ground at a sharp angle just ahead, Haag said.

The deer hunter told Haag, "It blew his mind." The couple thought it was the end of the world, Haag said.

The sonic booms that sound each time a sizeable piece break offs rumbled for many minutes, the deer hunter told Haag.

The meteorite would have disintegrated into dozens of pieces over a roughly 20-square kilometre strewn field, the self-proclaimed meteorite man said.

"Once we know where one of them is, we know where all of them are, or approximately."

"It's better to get everybody looking for it, than one guy. It's fun, it's adventure, it's treasure hunting, it's good science," he said.

Treasure-hunters should be looking for potato-shaped rocks that range from melon- to grape-sized pieces. They'll look like smooth concrete dipped in black paint, Haag said.

The search needs to get underway before snow blankets the area and covers up the space rocks for the winter.

Anyone who finds a potential meteorite should take a well-lit and focused digital photo of the rock sitting in their hand, Haag said, adding that recommendations not to touch the evidence are "ridiculous."

The samples, which are valuable to scientists and collectors, could be coming from as far away as Mars, Haag said.

If they're composed of rare chondrite, the rocks could be worth "much more than gold," Haag said.

In the past, one-of-a-kind pieces of carbonaceous chondrite from a rare meteorite that fell over Yukon's Tagish Lake in 2000 sold for as much as $50,000, Haag said.

"It's worth at least as much as silver," if they're made of a more common variety, he said.

"This is an event. When something like this happens, it's a shindig."

Haag expects hundreds of space enthusiasts, researchers and people hoping to cash in on the loot will fill up hotels and restaurants in the area in the coming days.

"Money gets people to go out and do stuff," he said.