Nearly 40 years have passed since Renee Johnson found what she thought was a meteorite, and now a University of Calgary program has confirmed her extraterrestrial find.

Johnson found her space rock in 1968, near Prince Rupert, B.C., while hunting for Christmas trees.

"I always thought that it was a meteorite so I always kept it and I always wanted to find out for sure if it was, but I never knew how to go about doing that," she said.

Last month, she showed her rock to Adrian Karolko, a fourth-year geology student from the University of Calgary. He was in Kelowna as part of the university's Prairie Meteorite Search program, which hunts for such finds in Western Canada.

'Totally amazed'

"It absolutely blew me out of the water. I was totally amazed.Thirty-plus years she kept this little, little piece of rock laying around in her cabinet," he said.

Johnson's space find is just five centimetres long and weighs only 40 grams.

University of Calgary scientist Alan Hildebrand confirmed the rock's origin after using a microprobe to detect nickel in its interior.

Her meteor will be sent to Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., for further study.

It's the 69th meteorite to be found in Canada, and the 10th to be discovered by the Prairie Meteorite Search since it began in 2000.