A small desert town in Australia recently spent two days being pummeled by fish falling from the sky. It’s believed the fish were sucked out of a river more than 300 miles away by a thunderstorm and carried over 40,000 feet high before finally releasing over the unsuspecting, and pretty darn surprised, townfolk.
It’s far from the first time talk of strange things raining down from the heavens has hit the headlines. From Biblical times to modern urban legends and oddball news, human beings have a fascination with unusual rain. This inspired us to research some historic incidents of things that don’t belong in the sky raining down from it.
- Frogs: As far back as 1873 and as recently as 1995, frogs have been a more common rain than you might think. In the latter incident, an English family encountered a storm that pelted them with hundreds of frogs as they drove through Scotland. The 1873 occurrence was similar, but took place in Kansas City, Missouri.
- Fish: Imagine playing a round of golf while being pelted with herring rain. That’s what happened to golfers in Bournemouth, England in 1948. In another Australian event, a 1989 light rain saw approximately 800 sardines hit the town of Ipswich.
- Blood: Although it sounds like something out of Stephen King’s imagination, blood really has rained on several occasions. 1842, 1869, and 1890 all saw rains of blood in different parts of the world. The 1890 incident was explained as bird blood, as birds were torn apart by fierce winds in a storm. The others were not so easily explained – and included chunks of flesh, muscle, and fat in the mix!
- Corn: Between 1982 and 1986 the town of Evans, Colorado suffered from a rain of kernels of corn, with no clear explanation – since there are no nearby corn fields. In a similar vein, Wichita, Kansas put up with an inexplicable rain of corn husks in 2001.
- Crabs: A veritable bounty of shellfish and crustaceans fell on Worcester, England in 1881 as a thunderstorm deposited hermit crabs and periwinkles on the town.
- Alligators: That’s right, alligators. In 1877 farmer J.L. Smith had to deal with several small, unscathed alligators raining on his South Carolina farm.
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