PETER MARMET METEORITE COLLECTION

At 6:30 on the morning of December 14, 1807, a blazing fireball was seen traveling southwards in Vermont and Massachusetts. Three loud explosions were heard over the town of Weston in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Stone fragments fell in at least six places. To this day, it's called the "Weston meteorite“, though not a speck of it fell in what's now Weston. It actually struck the ground on the eastern side of Easton. It was the first recorded meteorite fall in North America. People before then did not believe that rocks could just fall from the sky.

Two or three days after the fall, Professor Benjamin Silliman heard of it and - with Professor James L. Kingsley - immediately went to Weston to investigate. They visited every locality where stones had been reported to fall and interviewed many eyewitnesses. Several large stones had been smashed to bits on the rocky ground, others were kept by local residents as pieces of memorabilia.

Here is part of the report by the two professors:

An account of the Meteor which burst over Weston in Connecticut, in December 1807, and of the falling stones on that occasion; by Professors Silliman and Kingsley.

On the 14th of December, 1807, about half past 6 o‘clock, A.M., a meteor was seen moving through the atmosphere, with very great velocity, and was heard to explode over the town of Weston, in Connecticut, about 25 miles west of New Haven. Nathan Wheeler, Esq., of Weston, one of the justices of the court of common pleas for the county of Fairfield, a gentleman of great respectability, and of undoubted veracity, who seems to have been entirely uninfluenced by fear or imagination, was passing at the time through an inclosure adjoining his house, and had the opportunity of witnessing the whole phenomenon. From him the account of the apperance, progress and explosion of the meteor, is principially derived. The morning was somewhat cloudy. (...) The attention of Judge Wheeler was first drawn by a sudden flash of light, which illuminated every object. Looking up he discovered in the north a globe of fire, just then passing behind the cloud, which obscured, though it did not entirely hide the meteor. In this situation its appearance was distinct, and well defined, like that of the sun seen through a mist. (...) Its apparent diameter was about one-half or two-thirds the apparent diameter of the full moon. When it passed behind the thinner clouds, it appeared brighter than before; and when it passed the spots of clear sky, it flashed with a vivid light...

(From: American Journal of Science and Arts (2nd series); Vol. 47)

After reading the report by the two professors, President Thomas Jefferson reputedly exclaimed: "It's easier to believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven!"