>>>It began with the landing of nine meteors in Kansas. Then, suddenly, it exploded into a massive catastrophe.

First, the meteorite investigating team were turned into automatons, ruled by an unknown, alien intelligence. They barricaded themselves
from the world and began building a rocket project, aimed at traversing the stars.

Wow. Sounds like the plot of The Inheritors, from The Outer Limits tv series in 1960.... starring one of my favorite actors, Steve Ihnat. (And some guy named Robert Duvall.)

The title of this book comes from the fact that way back in the 1930s, more "stony meteorites" were found in Kansas than anywhere else in the world, leading people to believe that "God hated Kansas." The common sense solution didn't occur to anyone until researchers made it up to Antarctica, where meteorites were abundant and easily found. Stony meteorites were easy to find in Kansas because Kansas had hardlly any rocks, for the meteorites to blend in with, but in other locations, the amount of rocky ground hid the existence of these meteorites. (So says Isaac Asimov, anyway!)