Jefferson, meteorites, and plausible science

When a meteorite struck Weston, Connecticut, in 1807, two Yale professors verified the strike as extraterrestrial. Thomas Jefferson, after parsing their report, allegedly said that he "would find it easier to believe that two Yankee professors would lie, than that stones should fall from the sky."

Tom Bissell, “A Comet’s Tale: On the Science of Apocalypse,” in Dava Sobel, ed., The Best American Science Writing 2004, at 128, 144 (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).