The Great Sardine Rain of 1989
John-Bryan Hopkins

There’s all kinds of strange stuff falling from the sky: frogs, sardines, jellyfish, etc. Here are some documented cases of really weird precipitation.
Weird rain is one of the more bizarre – and still largely unexplained – phenomena that is periodically (yet continually) reported from all corners of the globe. There have been accounts of frog rain, fish rain, squid rain, worm rain, even alligator rain. The logical explanation for the odd occurrences is that a tornado or strong whirlwind picked up the animals from a shallow body of water and carried them – sometimes for hundreds of miles – before dropping them on a bewildered populace. This explanation has yet to be proved, and it can’t quite account for all of the documented incidents, as you’ll see below.
Here are some of the more unusual cases – a small sampling from thousands of reports over the years – that defy all rational explanation:
~ In 1966, Father Leonard Bourne was dashing through a downpour across a courtyard in North Sydney, Australia, when a large fish fell from the sky and landed on his shoulder. The priest nearly caught it as it slid down his chest, but it squirmed away, fell to the flooded ground and swam away.
~ These things don’t always happen in a heavy rain. In 1989, in Ipswich, Australia, Harold and Degen’s front lawn was covered with about 800 “sardines” that rained from above during a light shower.
~The citizens of Naphlion, a city in southern Greece, were surprised one morning in May, 1981, when they awoke to find small green frogs falling from the sky. Weighing just a few ounces each, the frogs landed in trees and plopped into the streets. The Greek Meteorological Institute surmised they were picked up by a strong wind. It must have been a very strong wind. The species of frog was native to North Africa!
~ In 1995, reports Fortean Times Online, Nellie Straw of Sheffield, England, was driving through Scotland on holiday with her family when they encountered a severe storm. Along with the heavy rain, however, hundreds of frogs suddenly pelted her car.
Categories: Food Facts
You must be logged in to post a comment.