There Are More Things In Heaven And Earth

T. A. Rickard, Man and Metals (1932), volume 2, p. 847-848:

The celestial origin of meteoric iron had been recognized at an early date, although it was disregarded subsequently. A fall of meteorites in 644 B.C. is noted in Chinese records. Another famous meteorite is the one that fell in 466 B.C. at Aegospotamos in Thrace, as recorded on the Parian marble. It is mentioned by Pliny and Plutarch. In classic antiquity numerous falls were recorded, and the recognition of their celestial source caused them to be worshipped. Livy,¹ for example, takes note of  several showers of stones that fell “from the air”, like hail, upon the Alban Mount, and elsewhere in Italy, in 654 B.C. The government ordered a festival of nine days whenever such a prodigy was reported. This happened again in 206 B.C. A meteorite that fell in 1492 at Ensisheim, in Alsace, was recovered at the time; it was suspended by a chain in the parish church, to be removed later to the City Hall, where it is still on view.² The meteorite, weighing 1500 pounds, that was seen by Pallas in 1772 at Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, was regarded by the Tartars as “a holy thing fallen from heaven”. In 1794 the German philosopher Chladni drew attention to the extra-terrestrial source of such iron masses, but his explanation was rejected by scientific men. Even at the beginning of the nineteenth century these wanderers from outer space were regarded as mere eccentricities, the French Academy of Science going so far as to vote that there was no such thing as celestial metal. Directors of museums were ashamed to exhibit specimens reported as having fallen from the sky. Not until the great shower of meteorites fell on April 26, 1803, at L’Aigle, in Normandy, was the question definitely settled. That strange spectacle was witnessed by thousands of persons, and focused the attention of scientific men, so as to prompt serious inquiry. The Minister of the Interior sent the scientist Biot to the spot to make a careful investigation, the result of which was a report, to the National Institute of France, confirming the extra-terrestrial origin of the stones. These facts must have escaped the notice of the American public, for in 1807 when President Jefferson was told that Professors Silliman and Kingsley had described a fall of stones from the sky at Weston, in Connecticut, he remarked: “It is easier to believe that two Yankee professors will lie than to believe that stones will fall from heaven.”³ At L’Aigle more than two thousand meteoric fragments fell over an area of twenty square miles. They were stony in substance, but they contained 10 per cent of nickel-iron.

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There are lots of stories where modern scholars look at some wild-seeming claim in the old records and dismiss it as fantasy, then later find out that it’s just straightforwardly true. This one is my favorite. It’s so poetic. You can understand why 18th century scientific rationalists would laugh at Roman accounts of rocks falling like hail. And yet!

If you read history then you’ll run into ancient accounts that sound totally nuts. And some of them are just nuts! But more of them are true than modern scholars usually give them credit for. There’s no shortage of “mythological” locations that were later found, and “supernatural” phenomena that were later reproduced and explained, and “fanciful” technology which later turned out to actually exist, and “myths” about social practices which were later confirmed real from archaeological evidence. Most of these cases will never be proven, since most of the artifacts and records have been lost. So, when you find some ancient claim that modern scholars consider “unverified”, consider whether it might be true anyway.

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1. Livy, I, 31; also XXIX, 14.

2. L. Fletcher, ‘An Introduction to the Study of Meteorites’, p. 19; 1904.

3. O. C. Farrington, Annual Report of Smithsonian Institution, 1901, p. 193.