What witnesses said about falling stones
Gibb treats the fall and the recovered stones as a reported event, while treating their cause as a separate question. For the Guernsey County, Ohio, fall on May 1, 1860, he records a thunderlike clap and an earthquake-like shock felt over a reported 60-mile distance; witnesses saw stones fall, and more than 30 were recovered[1]. One 51-pound stone was reportedly found 20 inches deep in stiff soil and was too hot to hold comfortably. Gibb also lists a 103-pound stone as the heaviest, distinct from that buried specimen[2]. He attributes his account to Lieutenant Tiddall’s reports in local papers and Dr. Lawrence Smith’s article, rather than presenting himself as an eyewitness[3].
For comparison, Gibb records a fragment-scattering fall at Dhurmsalla in 1860, a much larger reported shower near L’Aigle in 1812, and a fall at Benares in 1798[4][5][6]. These are historical accounts Gibb records, not modern verification of every observation or measurement. The supplied passage does not actually state a preference for a space-origin explanation: it ends by declining to examine the competing theories, so that preference cannot be established from this text[7].
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