The Stones That Fell at L'Aigle
When thousands of stones fell on a Normandy town, they finally convinced scientists that rocks really do fall from the sky.
What was reported
Around one o'clock on 26 April 1803, people in and around L'Aigle in Normandy heard explosions and saw a fireball. Then a shower of stones, some 3,000 of them, fell over a wide stretch of countryside.
At the time many scientists doubted that stones could fall from the sky and dismissed such reports as superstition. The French Academy of Sciences sent the young physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot to investigate.
Explanations offered
Biot interviewed witnesses, mapped where the stones had landed and showed they were unlike any local rock. His report convinced the scientific world that meteorites come from space, and L'Aigle is often called the birth of meteorite science. The stones are ordinary chondrites.
- When
- 26 April 1803
- Where
- L'Aigle, Normandy, France
- Witnesses
- Hundreds of townspeople and villagers
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.