“Last month, as the Taurids meteor shower was unfolding, the Bay Area was beneath a dome of heavy clouds that obscured the stars above. So I sat on my couch, flipping through a seemingly infinite universe of movies on my Apple TV, until I came upon Werner Herzog’s new documentary, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds. In it, the inimitable filmmaker explores the strange world of meteors and the unexpected ways these celestial objects have blazed through our imaginations, influencing history, culture, religion, and politics. The film is full of the wonderfully strange quips and idiosyncratic cinematography that we have come to expect from Herzog. But there was one exchange with a historian of science named Simon Schaffer that I found particularly fascinating. Schaffer recounted the story of a famous meteorite strike in 1492 in a field near the walled city of Ensisheim on the border of Germany and France. Today, Ensisheim is a sleepy, bucolic place. ...”
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