Case file · Cosmic event
Polonnaruwa meteorite and the 'fossil diatoms'
On 29 December 2012 a fireball was followed by falls of stones near Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka; Chandra Wickramasinghe's team claimed they held fossil diatoms, evidence of life from space.
2012 CE · 7.93, 81.00 · status: disputed
The sceptical view
Other researchers doubted the stones were meteorites at all, and diatoms are common terrestrial contaminants; the claim was not accepted.