In the history of odd and extraordinary precipitations, there has been a considerable amount of study and folklore, but few incidents even in the world of the paranormal are quite like this. In the Coundon Coventry of West Midlands, England it began pouring apples from the heavens Monday in such an incredible and unexpected display that motorists and pedestrians were helpless to do anything but stop and stare at the peculiar spectacle. But was this unusual rain a doomsday sign of the times or something a bit less apocalyptic?
The apples dropped on cars unexpectedly as motorists prepared to begin their day with no sign of anything out of the ordinary until the incident. The apples swirled around down street caught in a great gale of wind before finally being deposited with considerable force on the pavement, cars, and the homes of several individuals left in the dark of that bright morning mystery. The cause? Experts have pointed to a miniature localized tornado which picked the apples up and pulled them into the sky before depositing them several miles away. A tiny tornado has been blamed for some of the unusual precipitations in the past, and are said to be linked closely with the phenomenon. But not all of the claims have been explained away.
Far from the doomsday scenario some may have feared when the sky gave them apples, and they watched perplexed as they became familiar with a very abnormal (some would say paranormal) looking apple sauce ground into the sidewalks by the prodigious fall. The apples fell into gardens and yards, on houses, cars, and sheds. And the strangest part of it all was that this had indeed already happened before.
Engravings dating all the way back to France, 1555 depict fish raining from the heavens. At the turn of World War II, Louisianans were perplexed when a school of fish was deposited in buckets, streets, roofs, and ponds unexpectedly. And in Australia you may recall last year when we brought you coverage of a fish rain happening on February 25, and the 26th as motorists were once again driven off the side of the road by a large school of fish falling from the heavens. Of course in many of these cases the fish were seen alive after the incident, leading some to speculate whether the creatures spontaneously generated from thin air or were in fact drawn there by heavy winds.
Perhaps the strangest case of a creature falling from the sky came in 1869 when the mutilated carcass of an unknown animal came tumbling out of the sky on August 1st in Bath County, Kentucky. At the time the community was split over whether the creature was a simple cow or something far more exotic – possibly even alien. As is the case with so many cases like this one the remains were shortly thereafter discarded and lost.
Was the apple fall really a simple matter of a tiny vortex pulling them up? And if so, where would such a small tornado be able to find them? With strange weather all over the world, it seems more likely that we will be seeing stories like this all over.