On today, December 14, in 1807, residents from Vermont to Connecticut looked up at the sky and saw a red fireball. The fireball was described as being about two-thirds the size of a full Moon. The fireball broke apart and fell to Earth in at least six areas of Weston (that is now Easton,) Trumbull, and Fairfield, Connecticut.According to news reports, whizzing sounds were heard close to the impact sites, and three sonic booms were heard as far as 40 miles away.
A few days after the event, Yale professors Benjamin Silliman and James Kingsley traveled to the area to talk to witnesses, examine impact sites and collect specimens — including some from enterprising townsfolk who were selling them as souvenirs. Stiliman confirmed that the object was a meteorite — the first recorded in the New World. At the time, meteorites were a concept slowly being accepted in Europe, but their study was still a relatively new science. The Stilliman and Kingsley findings were published in the Connecticut Herald and rapidly spread to other newspapers. The professors findings were discussed by notable scientific organizations in Philadelphia, London and Paris. But there were still lots of skeptics about the idea of meteorites — including, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was said to have remarked, “It is easier to believe that two Yankee professors could lie than to admit that stones could fall from heaven.”
But nonetheless, Sillimans and Kingsley’s meteorite fragments collected in Weston were the first cataloged items in the Yale meteorite collection, which is the oldest in the United States.
— 30 —