CHAPTER ONE IT’S RAINING FROGS AND FISH When it’s raining heavily some people say that it’s pouring cats and dogs Of course that’s only an expression Cats and dogs really don’t rain down from the sky Although there may be poodles in the street But don’t be too sure that it never rains animals Here is a quote from the July 12 1873 issue of the magazine Scientific American A shower of frogs which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance is the reported result of a recent rainstorm at Kansas City Mo And this is by no means the only reported observation of animal showers Here is a report from an 1841 issue of an English magazine called The Athenaeum During a heavy thunderstorm the rain poured down in torrents mixed with half-melted ice and incredible as it may appear hundreds of small fishes and frogs in great abundance descended with the torrents of rain The fish 3
were from half an inch to two inches one to five centimeters long Many were picked up alive The frogs jumped away as fast as they could but the bulk of them were killed by the fall on the hard pavement The idea of living things raining down from the sky is difficult to believe But from ancient times up to the present there have been reports of showers of one kind or another of animals or plants In olden times these living showers were thought to be supernatural People believed in magic and witches They believed in good and evil omens People must have been frightened or pleased depending upon what rained down But whatever animal or plant rained down it certainly seemed to be a miracle There are still many stories of strange animal showers The reports are often printed in magazines or newspapers of the time Let’s look at some of these reports and then see if they can be explained in any scientific way Here is a report from Scientific American February 21 1891 In some parts of Randolph County Virginia this winter the crust of the snow has been covered two or three times with worms A square foot thirty by thirty centimeters of snow can scarcely be found some days without a dozen of these worms on it Another report from Scientific American in 1877 tells about a rain of snakes in Memphis Tennessee Thousands of little reptiles ranging from a foot to eighteen inches thirty to forty 4 STRANGE MYSTERIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
IT’S RAINING FROGS AND FISH A plague of frogs startled the diners in this print In olden times people believed that the frogs came from supernatural causes 5
five centimeters in length were distributed all over the southern part of the city A shower of frogs was reported in a 1939 issue of the English journal Meteorological Magazine Mr E Ettles superintendent of the municipal swimming pool stated that about 4 30 p m he was caught in a heavy shower of rain and while hurrying to shelter heard behind him a sound as of the falling of lumps of mud Turning he was amazed to see hundreds of tiny frogs falling on the concrete path around the bath Later many more were found to have fallen on the grass nearby Even turtles seem to have fallen from the sky Here is a report from a 1930 issue of Nature magazine During a severe hailstorm in Vicksburg U S A a gopher turtle 6 inches by 8 inches fifteen centimeters by twenty centimeters and entirely encased in ice fell with the hail In 1949 a long article appeared in the magazine Science The author A D Bajkov was a biologist working for the Department of Wild Life and Fisheries Here is part of his eyewitness report of what happened in Marksville Louisiana In the morning of October 23 1947 between seven and eight o’clock fish ranging from two to nine inches five to twenty three centimeters in length fell on the streets and in the yards I was in the restaurant with my wife having breakfast when the waitress informed us that fish were falling from the sky We went immediately to collect some of the fish The director of the bank said that he had discovered that fish had fallen by hundreds in his yard and in the adjacent yard The 6 STRANGE MYSTERIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD
