Buzz
Nature can be truly unsettling. Sometimes, it’s more than just rain, sun, fog, or snow falling from the sky. When the conditions are just right, nature unleashes storms that feel like the apocalypse.
Throughout history, almost every terrifying sign of divine wrath or the apocalypse has manifested at one point. Trumpets have blared from the heavens; hail, fire, and blood have rained down; immense stars have torn through the sky, poisoning our waters; the sun has turned black — and each time, people have panicked, believing the end was near.
10. Pillars of Fire
During the 2018 wildfires in California, as residents of Redding fled their homes, they witnessed a biblical sight. A massive pillar of fire soared 5,500 meters into the sky, descending upon their city and leaving destruction in its wake.
A physical manifestation of divine wrath destroyed their homes. You can’t blame them for becoming a bit introspective. However, the truth is, during wildfires, massive pillars of fire, much like the one that led Moses out of Egypt, are actually quite common.
These towering pillars of flame are known as “fire tornadoes” or “fire whirls,” and they are a natural phenomenon. They’re essentially whirlwinds that gather flames. When hot, dry air rises and spirals into a vortex, it can pick up embers and debris from the wildfire, creating a vortex of fire.
Typically, fire whirls are small and short-lived — but some can stretch up to the clouds and endure for hours, causing destruction as they travel at speeds similar to a tornado, hurling flames that can reach temperatures as high as 1,093°C.
9. Hail Mixed With Fire
When the first trumpet of the apocalypse sounds, the Bible says, a blend of hail and fire will rain down upon the earth, reducing the grass and trees to ashes.
This is essentially what occurred in Canberra, the capital of Australia, in 2003. Bushfires on the outskirts of the city became so uncontrollable that they spilled into the suburbs, and the scene was nothing short of catastrophic.
Canberra was reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lightning struck with no rain in sight, a towering pillar of fire 10,000 meters tall and 300 meters wide tore through the city, and, as in the apocalypse, hail and fire rained down together. To make matters even more unsettling, the hail was black.
Scientists suggest the hail turned black because ash and soot mixed with the water vapor in the clouds, forming a dirty black hail that was swept into the smoke plume.
It’s a terrifying scene—but in Australia, the dry air can fuel bushfires so intense that such occurrences have happened more than once. In some regions of the world, the first sign of the apocalypse is merely a warning to be cautious whenever a fire breaks out.
8. The Sound of Trumpets in the Sky
On August 11, 2011, a woman from Ukraine uploaded a video to YouTube showcasing a strange, metallic, groaning sound coming from the sky. It resembled something straight out of a horror film, an alien invasion, or, as some suggested, trumpets blaring from the heavens.
On its own, it was unsettling enough — but over the next months and years, more and more people shared similar videos online. Now, hundreds of these videos have been uploaded from all corners of the world.
While some of these videos turned out to be hoaxes, trying to capitalize on a growing trend, strange sounds like these do actually occur. Entire towns have experienced these eerie noises, and no one really knows what causes them.
Some explanations link the sounds to the rumblings of tsunamis or meteors, while others attribute them to small earthquakes beneath the surface, with the sounds being caused by the earth’s crust shifting underneath.
Whatever the cause, it’s hard not to feel a chill when you hear trumpets echoing from the sky. But for those who live with it, it’s nothing short of a nightmare.
“It’s driving me insane… It just won’t stop,” one woman from Rochester shared. “I don’t care what it is. Honestly, I don’t care. I just want to figure out what it is and make it go away.”
7. Rain of Blood
In July 2018, the Siberian city of Norilsk was blanketed in scarlet. A rain of blood-red liquid poured from the sky, coating buildings, vehicles, and roads, leaving people’s clothes stained in crimson.
It was a horrifying sight — but among all the apocalyptic disasters that nature throws at us, this one is actually the most frequent of them all.
Countless storms of blood-red rain have occurred throughout history, with the earliest records dating back to ancient Greece. These storms typically begin when red sand from deserts mixes with rain, resulting in a shower that could easily be mistaken for a death metal music video.
It’s so common that, technically, the phenomenon behind “blood rains” occurs in the United Kingdom multiple times each year. Typically, these rains turn more of a brownish-yellow than red, but aside from the color, they’re essentially the same thing.
The one that struck Norilsk was actually caused by rust particles from a factory, but despite its terrifying appearance, it wasn’t real blood — though a few of the people it fell on were convinced it truly was.
6. Plagues of Frogs and Flesh
On August 4, 1921, the people of Calgary found themselves caught in the midst of an Egyptian-style plague. Without warning, the sky opened up, and a torrential downpour of frogs rained down on them.
It was a terrifying event — and it’s surprisingly common. Or, at least, as common as Biblical plagues can be in real life. Frogs have fallen from the sky in places like Japan, Hungary, and Uruguay, while other regions have seen showers of fish, worms, jellyfish, octopuses, lizards, and almost anything else you can imagine.
It’s thought that animals are sucked up by tornadoes passing over bodies of water, then hurled back to Earth, often landing far from where they were picked up. This leaves the unfortunate people pelted with frogs and fish utterly confused as to what they could have possibly done to deserve such a strange fate.
5. Rivers of Blood
Falling frogs aren’t the only Egyptian-like plagues that visit the Earth on a semi-regular basis. Just like the rivers of Egypt, bodies of water across the globe have been reported to suddenly turn blood red.
In December 2018, people in Dedza, Malawi were thrown into a panic when they saw the Linthipe River running red. Many believed it was a sign — and even when geologists explained that a red oxide mine had contaminated the water, a significant number of people still insisted it was actual blood.
Of course, it wasn’t blood. Such contaminations are actually quite common. The Daldykan River in Siberia, located near a metallurgical plant, has turned red five different times. In fact, even one of the largest rivers on Earth — China’s massive Yangtze — turned blood red in June 2018.
Normally, it’s not blood that’s responsible for the color change in the water — but there is one exception to that.
In September 2017, a sewage pipe blockage at a slaughterhouse in Jianxi caused blood and waste from dead pigs to flood the Lianxi River, turning the water red — and this time, it was actual blood.
4. A Star Named Wormwood
In 2007, a great star fell from the sky, burning like a lamp, and it landed upon the fountains of waters. Many men became ill from the waters, because they were made bitter.
No one specifically reported hearing an angel blow a trumpet before it occurred, but otherwise, the 2007 Carancas impact event aligns almost perfectly with the description of an apocalyptic event.
A meteor struck the Earth just outside the city of Desaguadero, Peru, hitting with such force that it shattered the windows at the local health center, leaving behind a crater 30 meters wide and 6 meters deep.
Water began to surge up from beneath the earth after the meteor’s impact and filled the crater, and by the time people got close enough to see it, the water was boiling. It also released a toxic gas that made anyone who approached physically ill, often ending up hospitalized due to nausea and vomiting.
It’s a terrifying scene — but it does have a scientific explanation. Experts believe the meteor created a pathway to contaminated groundwater, filled with a sedimentary deposit rich in methane gases, which is what caused the illness among the people.
3. Days of Darkness
On the morning of May 19, 1780, the sun rose in the sky, changed its mind, and decided to descend again.
Throughout New England and parts of eastern Canada, people looked up in confusion as the morning sky grew dark, eventually turning completely black. By noon, it was as dark as midnight.
It would have been eerie for anyone, but for a group of Puritans, well-versed in the Biblical prophecy that the sun would be obscured for a third of the day during the apocalypse, it was utterly terrifying.
The people of New England took this as a clear sign that the end times had arrived, confessed their sins, gathered together, and waited for the rapture.
Of course, the world didn’t end, but the reason for the sun’s sudden darkness remains a mystery. There was no eclipse, no volcanic eruptions to block the sun, and no clear explanation as to why it happened that day.
However, we do know it occurred again in 1950 in Alberta, where the sky became so dark that, in the words of one environmentalist: 'If you had woken up at noon, you’d have thought it was midnight.'
The cause of that strange darkness was a distant forest fire, which produced enough smoke to block out the sun — and this may very well have been what caused the ominous black night that frightened so many Puritans.
But who’s to say for sure? Maybe the world did end in 1780, and now we’re living in a hellish post-apocalyptic world where blood rains from the sky and pillars of flame ravage our cities.
Well, it’s probably not what happened. But technically, it’s within the realm of possibility.
2. Blood-Splattered Snow
In May of 1818, as Captain John Ross and his crew were exploring the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage, they came across something eerie along the coast of Greenland. The cliffs were stained with what the men described as 'so dark a red, it resembled port wine.'
This odd phenomenon is known as 'Watermelon Snow,' but it’s hard not to see it as a bit unsettling. In certain parts of the world, you might wake up to find the snow outside resembling a murder scene, splattered with blood.
Captain Ross and his crew brought watermelon snow into the public eye, but this strange occurrence has been documented as far back as Aristotle’s time.
Watermelon snow forms on particularly warm days. When the sun begins to melt the snow, sometimes an algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis blooms, turning the snow pink or red. This accelerates the melting process, often leaving behind unsettling blood-red puddles as the snow melts away.
It’s not just creepy, either — it can also be dangerous. Eating watermelon snow is said to have a laxative effect, a fact learned by those brave enough to taste this natural oddity when confronted with it.
1. Literal S—— Showers
Sometimes it feels as though the heavens themselves have opened up and showered you with misfortune, but when Canadians complained about this in 2018, it wasn’t just a figure of speech. For nearly a year, a bizarre epidemic of feces falling from the sky overtook the country.
One Canadian family was enjoying a peaceful drive when, out of nowhere, feces fell from the sky and landed right through their open sunroof, splattering directly onto their heads.
'My son threw up,' the mother told reporters. 'We had so much in our faces. Both of us, our faces were covered in poop.'
Both mother and son developed a severe case of pink eye — but they weren’t alone. Eighteen separate cases of falling feces were reported across Canada in just one year, with one unfortunate family even getting doused while relaxing on their backyard deck.
The exact cause remains unclear. Transport Canada denies that the feces could have fallen from their planes, prompting scientists to speculate wild theories about flocks of ospreys and herons. One thing’s for sure, though — sometimes life really does poop on your head.
