Stones do not fall from the sky; reported meteorite falls are mistaken, fraudulent, or terrestrial.

Reports of stones falling from the sky sounded scientifically suspect to many eighteenth-century European scholars. Rocks belonged to Earth, while bright meteors in the atmosphere could be interpreted as electrical or gaseous phenomena.

The skepticism was not irrational: eyewitness accounts were difficult to verify, specimens could be mislabeled, and there was no accepted population of solid extraterrestrial debris from which stones might fall.

Chemical analyses in the 1790s began showing unusual similarities among alleged fallen stones, but the decisive case came at L’Aigle, France, in 1803.

Thousands of stones fell over a wide area in a witnessed shower. Jean-Baptiste Biot investigated the event for the French Academy and documented enough independent testimony and physical evidence to make a terrestrial explanation implausible.

Meteorites became accepted as solid extraterrestrial objects that survive atmospheric entry.

This history describes organized European scientific skepticism, not universal human belief. Many cultures had recorded or recognized falling stones long before European academies accepted them.

A meteoroid is the object in space, a meteor is the luminous atmospheric phenomenon, and a meteorite is material that reaches the ground.