Mainstream science, which was a handful of members of the Royal Society and the French equivalent, denied until the end of the 1800s the meteorites came from the sky, even though the ancient Greek metallurgists knew that quite well and called iron sideros because it was all meteoric at first. The ancient Egyptians also knew this and their symbol for iron was a crucible and a couple of shooting stars. Give Aristotle credit for having the best collection of constitutions: he seemed to be up to speed on the gov'ts of the many various city-states and his comments on oligarchy and democracy would probably raise some hackles here if anybody bothered to read his book.
A meteorite strike in the presence of the Holy Roman Emperor (which obviously took place a while back) in, hmm, I think it was in Burgundy / Arelate, wasn't enough to convince most experts. And large impacts weren't accepted by most (except hypothetically, or in the remote past, such as the "Late Heavy Bombardment") until 1994 when SL-9's fragments smashed into Jupiter and left scars. :')