Came from the Sky

Well, it's not a meteor...

"Oh, it came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline
Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn't believe what he seen
Laid on the ground and shook, fearing for his life
Then he ran all the way to town screaming "It came out of the sky."

— Creedence Clearwater Revival, "It Came Out of the Sky"

An object thought to be a meteorite will come crashing down to earth leaving a large crater, usually in the middle of nowhere, but farms are a popular target as well. The event will be noticed by someone (even in the middle of nowhere) who will be the first on scene to investigate (bonus points if it's a farmer with a shotgun).

What they find at the site will, 8 cases out of 10, be alien, and can range from fully grown adults, sometimes near death, to easily irritated hostile lifeforms, or just a baby. Other findings may include advanced alien tech, capsules holding something bad, or an actual meteorite with unearthly properties.

There's also a second type to this trope, where the impact happened a long time ago and the site was only recently discovered and excavated. Afterward, everything plays out the same.

Also see Magic Meteor, Thunderbolt Iron and Imported Alien Phlebotinum, and Icarus Allusion which can lead into this trope.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Neon Genesis Evangelion: There was a delay of over a billion years between the crash and when Adam & Lilith were discovered and excavated since Lilith had to create terrestrial life first.
• One Piece:
  • At the start of the Skypiea arc, a huge Galleon comes crashing down from the sky right next to the Strawhat crew nearly capsizing their ship, once they recover they immediately start investigating the wreckage and find items setting them up for their next adventure.
  • Also in the third movie, the animals on the eponymous island believe that Chopper was their king when he seemingly came flying down from the sky. The truth was that he was simply flung off Going Merry when the ship went flying and landed in front of the animals.
  • And in the G8 filler, after leaving Skypiea the Straw Hats land in a heavily guarded Marine base. When Zoro was captured and being interrogated how they managed to sneak into the base, he told them they came from the sky.
  • In the Marineford arc, Luffy and the escaped Impel Down inmates suddenly appear at the war falling from the sky. This was due to their ship getting caught in a wave caused by Whitebeard's earthquake powers then the sea being frozen by Aokiji's ice power when they were on top of it. They had tried to slide the ship down, but the piece of ice they were on broke and sent them plummeting downward.
• Radiant: The monsters called Nemesis randomly fall from the sky to Pharenos inside eggs and after hatching, cause destruction on their surroundings.
• Angel Crush: Gale comes crashing from the sky into Faye's house.

Asian Animation

• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 3, a meteorite lands near Goat Village and creates a big crater, and the goats try to identify what it is. It reveals itself to be a friendly flower alien named Little Flower.

Comic Books

• Superman:
  • "The Phantom Superboy": During an archaeological expedition in the New Mexico desert, Professor Lang and his colleagues witness a large object falling from the sky. When they arrive at the impact site, they find a miraculously intact glowing metal box. Since the box is too hard to be opened and they cannot translate the message engraved on its surface, they decide to take it to Smallville and ask Superboy help them out.
  • Superman: Red Son has a very simple premise: arriving with a few hours' difference means Kal-El lands in the Soviet Union.
  • In The Supergirl From Krypton (1959), Clark Kent finds Kara Zor-El when he sees a rocket crashing down to Earth and flies to the landing site to investigate. Inside the rocket he finds a teenager girl who's dressed like him and happens to be his cousin.
  • In the first pages of Supergirl (1982), Kara retells how she crashed on Earth and Superman met her.
  • The Supergirl from Krypton (2004): After having seen a giant Kryptonite meteorite crashing on Earth, Batman is picking up the pieces scattered in the bottom of Gotham Bay when he stumbls upon an empty vessel alien. When he and Superman find its owner, they find the latter's cousin, Kara Zor-El.
  • In Last Daughter of Krypton, Post-Flashpoint Kara's space pod lands in Kansas, cuts through the Earth's mantle and resurfaces in Siberia. Kara stumbles out of her pod and is surrounded by a private-owned black corps team whose boss wants her captured and examined.
  • Supergirl: Being Super begins with Kara's space rocket crash-landing on Earth and being found.
  • Young Love starts out with Kara reminiscing her arrival on Earth and her meeting with Superman.
  • Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade begins when Kara crash-lands into Earth after smashing into a Luthor's giant robot.
  • In Bizarrogirl, the title character's rocket ship crashes in Metropolis' Centennial Park. Dr. Light and Gangbuster head to the zone to investigate and run into Bizarrogirl.
• Green Lantern: Hal Jordan got taken to the site where he was given the Ring by a dying Abin Sur.
• When Marvel Comics wanted to bring Jean Grey back from her death in The Dark Phoenix Saga, they had her hibernating in a cocoon at the Jamaica Bay crash site where Phoenix emerged.
• Creature Tech opens with a giant space eel crashing in Gold Rush-era Turlock, California. There are no survivors, not even the eel. Several generations later, the remains of the space eel become important.
• Vandal Savage was once an ordinary caveman, the only one of his tribe who dared to approach the giant green rock that fell from the sky, sleeping next to it for warmth. The next day, he was immortal and super-intelligent.
• Hillbilly has an arc called "Red-Eyed Witchery From Beyond", about a meteorite bringing an alien curse to the hill country.

Fan Works

• Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger: The Mask of Nihilus arrives on Remnant in a container that crash-lands near a monastery and creates an impact crater.
• Last Child of Krypton: Details change between both versions, but a Kryptonian rocket crashes down on Antarctica, and Yui Ikari finds it.
• No stars in sight: In Chapter 4, we're shown Formora's perspective as she witnesses Ikharos's jumpship, a Cabal frigate, two Scornships, and pieces of the Exodus colony ship all fall from the sky after being spit out by a Negative Space Wedgie. She initially mistakes them for shooting stars but quickly realizes that they're something entirely new.
• Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Kal-El's ship crash-lands in Germany, killing the baby, and his remains are found and taken to STAR Labs for analysis. Eventually his DNA is used to fertilize the ova that would be Asuka.
• Supergirl (2015) story Survivors starts out with Kara and Kal's rocket crash-landing into the Oregon woodlands. Several interested parties immediately make their way to the place, but both cousins have fled for then.

Films — Animation

• Castle in the Sky starts with an unconscious Sheeta slowly descending from the sky to be caught by Pazu. Later Muska shows Sheeta a Laputian robot that came crashing down on farm.
• Lilo & Stitch: Lilo and Nani see something crash near their house. Nani doesn't seem to care but Lilo thinks it's a shooting star and makes a wish for a friend, "Maybe an angel, the nicest angel you have." Cut to a decidedly non-angelic Experiment 626 emerging from the wreckage.
• Megamind and Metro Man both crashed to Earth. The latter lands at the doorstep of a rich family, the former in a prison yard.
• Monsters vs. Aliens: A young couple on a date see the giant robot land from their car and the girl drags her reluctant date to go see it. Not to mention the meteor at the very start that, beyond all probability, lands on the heroine-to-be.
• Superman/Batman: Apocalypse: Supergirl lands in Gotham harbor. Adapted from The Supergirl from Krypton (2004) Comic.
• The Iron Giant: The Giant is first seen by a fisherman lost in a storm. He first sees something fall from the sky, then runs into the Giant thinking its glowing eyes are the lighthouse.
• The Mask of Life, housing protagonist Mata Nui's soul in BIONICLE — The Legend Reborn, crashes on the desert planet Bara Magna. In earlier media, background info was relayed through a sort of tribal play, in which special stones representing Mata Nui, Makuta and the Toa were shown falling out of the sky.

Films — Live-Action

• Attack the Block has the alien crash onto a car on Guy Fawkes's day, meaning people assume it to be a firework.
• In The Avengers (2012), the Hulk plummets from the Helicarrier and crashes into a warehouse. When a naked and still-alive Bruce Banner emerges from the wreckage, the security guard on duty thinks he's some kind of alien.
• Lampshaded in Back to the Future: after crashing the time machine into a barn, Marty emerges to find himself face to face with a farmer with a shotgun, and the farmer's son holding a comic book depicting a crashed alien ship and a figure wearing a space suit startlingly similar to Marty's.
• Creepshow segment "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill'' starts with a meteor falling from the sky near the title character. Jordy (played by Stephen King) pours water on it, causing it to crack open, and things go downhill from there.
• The Deadly Spawn's opening shot is of the meteorite full of aliens crashing somewhere in the woods.
• Evolution has the plot set up as a meteor crashes to Earth and the bacteria inside of it evolve rapidly into alien life forms to live on Earth.
• The Gods Must Be Crazy: A careless pilot drops a glass Coke bottle out of his plane's window. It survives the landing and is found by a tribe of bushmen, who use it in their everyday tasks. Before long, the fact that there's only one causes dissension, and Xi is sent to drop it off the Earth.
• The origin story of Ghidorah from the Godzilla franchise has it crashing to Earth in a meteorite.
• A deleted scene from the first Hellboy movie has the villains finding a mysterious stone altar that they need in their ritual at the climax of the movie. The stone's origin, we're told, is that it fell out of the sky, carvings and all, causing The Tunguska Event.
• Independence Day: Area 51 conceals a repaired attacker and three alien bodies recovered from Roswell in 1947. A fresh one also gets shot down.
• It Came from Outer Space begins with a meteor-like object crashing near a small town. It turns out to actual be a malfunctioning alien spacecraft.
• Jason X ends with Jasons' burning remains re-entering the atmosphere and landing in the lake, but not before being mistaken for a falling star by a couple who decide to go have closer look.
• Lazer Team: The Antarean courier ship was coming in for a landing, when a pair of hicks fires a large firework rocket that strikes the craft, causing it to crash land. Inside, the two idiots, plus a sheriff's deputy and a high school quarterback, find the Suit.
• Men in Black: The bug-alien villain arrives on Earth in an impact crater, and the first person on the scene is indeed a violent hick toting a shotgun.
  Alien: Place projectile weapon on the ground.
  Hick: You can have my gun [Dramatic Gun Cock] when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
  Alien: Your proposal is acceptable. [sucks hick into the crater]
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes opens with the remains of an American space subtle unexpectedly dropping into the ocean near San Francisco. When the authorities arrive to investigate, it's full of chimpanzees in space suits.
• Predator starts with the title character's ship landing in South America.
• Prey (2022): The heroine sees a falling star and initially thinks it's some kind of omen, but it turns out to be a Predator's spacecraft.
• Slither, an affectionate parody of a bunch of monster movies, has the nasty arrive from space via crashing to Earth.
• Star Kid: A shy seventh-grader's life changes when a meteor falls into a junkyard near him. Inside it he finds a "Cybersuit", an exo-suit with AI from another galaxy.
• Star Wars: In The Empire Strikes Back, one Imperial probe droid lands on Hoth and gets mistaken for a meteorite. Luke has intended to investigate the crash site, but was attacked by a wampa, a yeti-like predator.
• The beginning of The Thing (1982) is of the spaceship containing the Thing crash-landing in Antarctica.

Literature

• H. P. Lovecraft's short story The Colour Out of Space. In the Back Story, a meteor fell on the farm of Nahum Gardner.
• The War of the Worlds (1898) starts with the Martians' cylinders falling to Earth after being launched from some giant cannon back on their own world.
• "The Accursed Galaxy" (1935) by Edmond Hamilton has the force field prison of an immortal Energy Being land on Earth.
• Stardust: Due to an accident elsewhere in the story, a star gets knocked out of the sky. A young man, Tristran, who wants nothing more than to win the heart of his beloved Victoria grandly declares that he'd even give her the star that just fell, and she challenges him to do just that in return for anything he wants from her. The fallen star turns out to be a girl named Yvaine.
• In The Andromeda Strain, a meteor carrying a plague organism crashes into a satellite, knocking it from orbit. A recovery team is dispatched to retrieve the downed satellite; during a live radio communication the team members suddenly die. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. This has also been adapted to film twice.
• Calcifer of Howl's Moving Castle fame is a falling star. In another novel by Diana Wynne Jones, Dogsbody, the protagonist used to be the god who inhabited the star Sirius, and he's been sent to Earth to find and recover a mysterious powerful object called a "Zoi" which fell onto the planet and will probably resemble a meteorite.
• The Orb of Aldur and the Sardion both fell from the sky in The Belgariad as well as the Thunderbolt Iron used to make Garion's sword. Beldin complains about this tendency in The Malloreon; "Why does everything fall out of the sky? Why can't something rise up out of the earth for a change?"
• The Bible has a falling star poison a third of the planet in Revelations, as a sign of the Apocalypse.
• In Clifford Simak's novel Mastodonia, protagonist Asa Steele has been excavating what looks like a meteor crater on his family farm, but his discoveries are making him instead think it's the place where an alien spaceship crashed thousands of years ago. He's right. Furthermore, one of the aliens escaped the crash and has been living in the area ever since, hoping for rescue.
• In the backstory of Gone, a meteor crashed into Perdido Beach's nuclear power plant and killed a worker there, which turned out to contain a being created by aliens to spread life to other worlds, which is mutated by the radiation to become the Gaiaphage, which becomes a Mass Super-Empowering Event as well as the Big Bad of the series.
• Whateley Universe: Where Doctor Amazing thinks "symbiotic vampires" came from:
  “Whoa! You mean we got vampires from outer space now too?” complained Toni.
  I nodded. “Doctor Amazing thinks that the first ones came to Earth in meteors in the late Sixties."

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe": At the beginning, the Doctor, wearing a spacesuit with the helmet on backwards, falls to Earth after blowing up an attacking spaceship and not being able to get back to the TARDIS in time. A woman named Madge is nearby when he lands, and finds him after approaching the crater.
  • "The Woman Who Fell to Earth": The Doctor gets to fall to Earth again, this time merely from the height of a jet plane, but without either the TARDIS or a spacesuit, crashing into a stopped train.
• Gilligan's Island episode "Meet the Meteor": A radioactive meteor falls onto the island.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: At the end of the first episode, an ominous meteorite-like object blasts through the sky and crashes near to the Harfoot encampment. Curious Nori Brandyfoot approaches the impact site and discovers a man curled up in the bowl of the crater.
• Roswell TV series: The main characters are alien survivors of the Roswell UFO crash, who were adopted and raised by human families.
• In the Ultra Series franchise, alien monsters often arrive on Earth being mistaken for meteorites before they land. The most straightforward example of this is from the original Ultraman. In the episode simply titled "Gift from the Sky", a massive meteorite that crashes on the outskirts of Tokyo turns out to be a superheavy monster Science Patrol dubs Skydon as a pun on how it came "sky-down".

Music

• "Inca Roads" by Frank Zappa from One Size Fits All
  Did a vehicle come from somewhere, out there
  Just to land in the Andes
  To find a place to park itself?
  Or was it something different?
• "It Came Out of the Sky" from Willy and the Poor Boys by Creedence Clearwater Revival. The central joke of the song is that we never actually find out what it is, although many suggestions are made.
  Oh, it came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline.
  Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn't b'lieve what he seen.
  Laid on the ground and shook fearin' for his life.
  Then he ran all the way to town screamin' it came out of the sky.
• "Zopilotes" by Mexican band Cafe Tacuba is about a group of the eponymous "Vultures" seeing a ball of metal and flames crash onto the desert. The vultures then approach it and are puzzled by the non-human looking beings among the wreckage.

Tabletop Games

• Champions supplement "The Circle and M.E.T.E.": A park ranger in Yellowstone National Park finds a large brownish blob in a 10-yard-wide charred circle of earth, presumably where the blob fell to earth.

Video Games

• Shounen Kininden Tsumuji begins with the Big Bad seeing a meteorite from the sky crashing into the ground and as soon he goes near it, it immediately enters his body and gives him demonic powers.
• In Steel Harbinger, hundreds and hundreds of pods drop from the stratosphere and embed themselves on Earth's surface everywhere. Then one of those pods in California suddenly unleash Combat Tentacles, grabs civilians and begin assimilating everyone into half-human monstrosities, followed by pods in the rest of the world.
• EarthBound (1994): The game starts off with a meteorite crashing near Ness' house.
• King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride: Cheese mysteriously falls from the sky, leading to people getting hysterical because "The moon is falling!".
• Mushroom Men: The story begins when a comet crashes to the Earth, raining down a strange green dust in its wake. Scientists say the space dust is harmless to humans, but they failed to notice that flora,fauna and fungi including mushrooms, cacti, and kudzu gained sentience. A battle of not-so-epic proportions ensued.
• The Wii remake of A Boy and His Blob starts with what looks like a meteorite crashing near the boys' tree-house, he then heads to the landing site where he meets his Blob.
• Tales of Eternia starts off with Reid and Farah nearly getting hit by a crashing UFO. Farah wants to go see what nearly killed them. This leads to them finding Meredy, which kicks off the plot.
• Final Fantasy V begins with Bartz and Lenna (exploring and finding out why the wind stopped, respectively) being discommoded by a nearby meteorite crash. When they investigate more closely, they find an amnesiac old man named Galuf who joins them. Three more meteorites crash throughout the story, each containing someone Galuf knows. The third has his granddaughter, who restores his memories of being from another planet entirely.
• In Final Fantasy VII, Jenova's is referred to in Ancient records as "the calamity from the sky". The far-northern site where she impacted several thousand years before the game is a massive crater called "the Northern Crater". The damage done to the (living) planet by this event still hasn't healed, which is why the north is so cold and barren (the planet is using all the local life energy to slowly repair the "wound"). The plan of the Big Bad is eventually explained to be a recreation of this event on an ''even larger scale''.
• Halfway through Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, you learn that an object known as The Dark Star landed in the Mushroom Kingdom some time in the past and was incarcerated to prevent it causing damage. Naturally, it goes free later on in the game and ends up merging with Fawful to form the Final Boss.
• The Spore adventure titled "It Came From The Sky" features a alien spaceship crash-landing near a research facility on an icy planet. The alien that was aboard said ship had, unknowingly, infected the entire base with a strange, mutagenic disease.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Oocco and her son come from the City in the Sky. She fell off, and eventually gave up hope of getting back to the sky until she met Link.
• A random encounter in Dragon Age: Origins has the party arrive at the site of a meteorite strike where two farmers have found a baby and decide to adopt it. The party itself finds a piece of metal that can be turned into the best melee weapon in the original campaign. And as should be fairly obvious, the entire scene is a Shout-Out to Superman.
• In Chrono Trigger, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs turns out to be the worlds-consuming alien Lavos.
• In the Gaia Online Facebook game Monster Galaxy, the player discovers their first monster when what appears to be a meteorite crashes outside of their home.
• The entire plot of MARDEK: Chapter One is Mardek and Deugan as kids trying to find a star that fell out of the sky into the nearby Canonia Woods. It turns out to be Rohoph's crashed galloper.
• The Alien Death Slug from The Visitor climbs out of a meteorite at the start of each game.
• The Eaters from Chimera Beast enter the planet via meteorites crashing into the sea. They start out microscopic, but they begin to grow over time, including the player's Eater...
• Golden Sun: The town of Lalivero holds Sheba to be their sacred child, because she fell from the sky without harm. The second game features a ginormous crater, which we're told used to contain the city of Anemos before it lifted off into the sky to become the moon. Hmmm...
• In Command & Conquer, the resource "Tiberium" arrives by meteorite strike on the banks of the Tiber River, Italy. It's a literal green rock that can be processed into fuel or metal; and since its self-replicating, it's a renewable resource. Predictably, this leads to a war over its control; between the Global Defense Initiative, who want to contain it, and The Brotherhood of Nod who want to exploit it as a catalyst to human evolution.
  • In Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars, the Scrin can call down a tiberium meteorite as one of their Support Powers. It causes heavy damage and leaves a tiberium patch. This can be used offensively (bomb the enemy base, preferably the barracks so they can't deploy soldiers) or defensively (bomb an invading army, leaving the tiberium as an impromptu minefield).
• In Kingdom Hearts, the rulers of Radiant Garden sent their daughter (Kairi) to safety on...something...that would later crash down on the shore of Destiny Islands. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty high-octane to pierce the starfield between worlds. The soul-magnetising trinket that Aqua enchanted for Kairi in Birth by Sleep also helped.
• Darkest Dungeon: The Color of Madness DLC centers around a comet that fell on a farmstead near the town. The comet contains a larval Eldritch Abomination, and the energies leaking out from the comet horribly warp the area and its inhabitants. The Miller, his farmhands, and his plow horses are turned into grey-skinned husks filled with crystalline growths, and the warping of time and space in the farmstead means that any enemy from another dungeon can also show up there.
• The Warframe quest "The Duviri Paradox" begins... again! (whoops) when a mysterious detached hand crash-lands in the kingdom of Duviri, interrupting the endless cycle of Drifter's execution and fusing with their own hand, giving them a chance to escape.

Webcomics

• Hexenringe begins with a meteor crashing into the Earth while the main character is more concerned with Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life.
• Homestuck: All of the Kids, their Guardians, and Bec came down in meteorites sent through Skaian portals during the Reckoning. This happens to every session. Additionally, a lot of mysterious buildings are seeded by the Reckoning, such as the Skaianet Lab near Rose's home or the Exile bases.
• Makeshift Miracle begins with a mysterious girl meteorically crashing down next to the protagonist.

Web Original

• JonTron gets his hands on a copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts after it crashes from orbit into his lawn.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Book 3, Episode 4: "Sokka's Master", Sokka makes himself a sword from a meteorite that fell at the beginning of the episode.
• Kaeloo: In the episode "Let's Play the Thing From Outer Space", a strange egg-shaped object falls from the sky into Smileyland. The main four find out that it is alive. Kaeloo and Quack Quack consider accepting it into their home, but Mr. Cat and Stumpy are paranoid and want to get rid of it. At the end of the episode, Mr. Cat tricks Quack Quack into launching it back into space.
• Katie and Orbie is about a little pink alien who crash-lands in the backyard of a little girl named Katie, and gets taken in by her family.
• The New Adventures of Superman episode "The Iron Eater". A meteor falls outside of Metropolis. After it hits the ground, it breaks open and reveals the title monster.
• As shown in the Ready Jet Go! theme song, Jet's house, which was actually a starship, just fell to Earth.
• The Simpsons: In "Treehouse of Horror XVII", the segment Married to the Blob opens with a meteorite crashing in the Simpsons' backyard (tearing off a good chunk of Marge's hair in the process) and cracking open to reveal a glowing green goo. Homer eats it, thinking it's a "space marshmallow", and ends up turning into a giant, insatiable blob monster.
  Lisa: Dad, no! It could teach us the secret of interstellar travel!
  Homer: If he's so smart, how come he can't stay out of my mouth?
• Super Friends episode "Menace of the White Dwarf": In the Back Story, a meteor fell next to the house of hillbilly Paul Martingale. It turns out to be a piece of kryptonite, carrying spores of Kryptonian mushrooms that can cancel out the gravity of a white dwarf star fragment. Yes, really.
• Wanda and the Alien: As depicted in the credits, Wanda finds Alien's spacecraft after it crash-lands near by their rabbit hole.

Real Life

• This was shockingly common throughout most of the Cold War, starting at first with downed spy plane pilot Gary Powers. Yuri Gagarin wasn't much better, he parachuted into a farm independently of his space craft. A few of the early Venera craft failed and reentered and landed in both America and the Soviet Union. The probes were meant to operate on Venus and survived reentry, much to the shock of locals.

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