SYC4701374: Reflections on the origin of various masses of native iron, including that found by Pallas in Siberia by Ernst Chladni. 1794, Germany. National Museum of Natural History, Paris. In 1794, a German physicist, Ernst Chladni, proposed that the stones falling from the sky were of alien origin. It's a revolution. For many scholars, it's impossible. Despite this skepticism, meteorites become the subject of a vigorous controversy that stirred the whole of Europe for ten years. / Bridgeman Images