Buzz
When The Weather Girls debuted their hit song "It’s Raining Men" in 1982, they couldn’t have predicted just how spot-on they were. The song remains fun, unforgettable, and undeniably catchy. However, it’s also oddly accurate! Well, technically not entirely. Men don’t actually fall from the sky—except maybe in the wildest fantasies of some single women. It’s just a playful tune! But the concept of things other than rain falling from the sky? Not as outlandish as it might seem!
History is filled with bizarre instances of things falling from the sky that weren’t rain. And no, we’re not talking about acid rain or anything like that. We’re referring to things like animals and other strange stuff! In this article, we explore ten notable moments when animals rained down from above. Believe it or not, there are far more than ten such occurrences in history, but we’ve narrowed it down to the top ten to share with you today. Who would’ve guessed?! (The Weather Girls, that's who!)
10. Kentucky, USA (1876)
On the morning of March 3, 1876, Mrs. Crouch, the wife of a farmer, stood on her porch in rural Bath County, Kentucky, when she witnessed an astonishing sight: meat began to rain down from the sky. For several short, unexpected moments, pieces of meat slapped the ground around her in a strange and unexplainable shower. She took this unusual event as a divine message, and honestly, who could blame her for thinking that way?
Experts who investigated the meat pieces determined they measured about two inches by two inches (5cm by 5cm) and were chopped up. Most specialists believed the meat was either lamb or deer. However, there were claims that it could have been human flesh, though no evidence supported that theory. A few men even reportedly sampled the meat and concluded it was lamb or deer. Honestly, that was quite brave. We wouldn't be tasting meat falling from the sky!
Further examination by Scientific American revealed that the meat was identified as lung tissue. But here’s where it gets unsettling: One doctor suggested it could have been from a horse or even a human infant. Additional tests confirmed the meat was most likely lung tissue, though some of it could have been muscle.
As for what caused the strange shower, locals speculated that buzzards had regurgitated the meat in mass while flying overhead. Vultures and buzzards are known to vomit their food when they see another bird in their group do the same to prevent food poisoning. It’s possible they were startled while flying and released all the contents of their stomachs.
9. Shropshire, UK (2004)
On Wednesday, August 18, 2004, Kevin Kell was walking through the small village of Knighton in the Shropshire region, located in the West Midlands of the UK near the border with Wales. Around 2:45 p.m. local time, he looked up and noticed something unusual falling from the sky. It wasn’t rain—it was fish!
A few hours earlier in the afternoon, a thunderstorm had passed through the area, but by the time it happened, the sky had cleared. Well, clear except for the fish falling from the sky! A bit puzzled, Kell looked down at the pavement and saw dozens of small fish—probably minnows in his view—laying lifeless on the cold cement. Unsurprisingly, he was bewildered. Nearly everyone in Shropshire shared that confusion. The event was so bizarre that it made its way onto BBC News and spread across the globe.
But there was actually a simple explanation! The earlier rainstorm, mixed with strong winds and unusual weather patterns, likely caused the fish to be swept up from the ocean into a waterspout. These fish were then carried high into the clouds, only to be dropped unceremoniously onto the pavement in Knighton, right around Kell’s feet.
So, while seeing fish rain from the sky certainly wasn’t natural or normal, it wasn’t biblical either—hopefully. There’s no word on whether Kell said any extra prayers that night to avoid any impending plagues, but media reports mentioned he went on to the pub as originally planned, ready to share a laugh with his mates about the bizarre fish shower. Naturally!
8. Nagaram, India (2015)
In August 2015, the people of a tiny village called Vuyyurivaripalem, near the city of Nagaram in India, woke up one Sunday morning to find their farm fields covered with fish. This so-called “fish rain” occurred in the early hours of the morning, and practically no one in the village knew what had happened until they awoke with the sun a few hours later.
Stretching across more than two acres (0.8 hectares), hundreds upon hundreds of dead fish were scattered across the fields. Since no one admitted to going out and leaving them there, the only logical conclusion was that they must have come from... above! The villagers, completely baffled by the fish seemingly falling from the sky, called in experts and scientists from nearby universities to help make sense of the phenomenon.
One of these experts, a biology professor named Srinivasa Rao, spoke to the Times of India about the strange occurrence. "Fish don't just fall from the sky," Rao explained. "What typically happens is that a gust of wind or a tornado can accompany rainfall. The powerful winds can displace water from nearby rivers, canals, or fish tanks, and along with the water, fish and other marine creatures are carried away to other locations." Rao believed this was precisely what had occurred in Vuyyurivaripalem.
Here’s the most mind-blowing part: this wasn’t even the first time it had happened! It was actually the second “fish rain” to occur in that region of India in just a month. On June 19, 2015, in the nearby Krishna district, residents in Gollamudi village reported that fish had also fallen from the sky and landed in their farm fields.
7. Pennsylvania, USA (2016)
In September 2016, on a typical day in Philadelphia, a woman named Lisa Lobree was walking through Fairmount Park with her friends. Suddenly, without warning, a catfish dropped from the sky and landed with a smack right on top of her head! Lisa was stunned, of course. There had been no unusual activity around her at the time, and no one else—other than her friend Annie—was in the area to explain where the catfish came from.
Dazed and disoriented, Lisa took a few more steps before Annie noticed something strange. She looked back and spotted the smelly fish that had struck Lisa! "It bounced off Annie, too," Lisa recalled in an interview with CBS Philadelphia. "Annie saw me stumble, turned around, and said, 'Oh my God! It was a fish.' I think it hit me on the head, face, and neck because I reeked afterward. I smelled horrible."
Luckily, Lisa didn't suffer any major injuries from the falling fish. She had a small cut on her face and a minor bump on her head where the catfish had collided with her. The fish wasn't tiny either—reports indicated it was about a foot (30.5cm) long. As for what caused it? Well, it wasn’t a thunderstorm or waterspout this time.
Although experts were puzzled by the bizarre event, Lisa's friends noticed something interesting: after the incident, they spotted a bird flying overhead. They suspect the bird was carrying the catfish in its beak, possibly on its way home for a meal, when it accidentally dropped the fish. Unfortunately for Lisa Lobree, she took the brunt of the fall. And, unfortunately for the bird, it lost its lunch!
6. California, USA (2017)
In the spring of 2017, did God decide to send a downpour of carp and bluegill onto a school in northern California? Or was it a meticulously executed prank that left no trace of its perpetrator? That was the question authorities at Stanford Avenue Elementary School in Oroville, California, had after discovering more than 100 dead fish scattered across the playground and roof one morning.
The rainstorm came down sometime between 10:00 a.m. and noon on a Friday morning. But here’s the crazy thing: Nobody knows where they came from. And experts don’t even believe they were picked up by an area storm and carried in the clouds over to the school! While news outlets and school officials alike assumed that the fish had been dropped onto the playground from a water spout that was kicked up somewhere close by—perhaps even from the nearby Oroville Dam—the National Weather Service very specifically refuted those theories.
Speaking to KTVU News about the weird carp rain, an NWS spokesman said, “There was no meteorological evidence that would explain this.” Weird! So if it’s not a water spout or a mini-tornado that picked up fish from a hatchery, what could it have been? A prank? A sign from God? Let’s hope that school isn’t targeted for any future plagues of locusts or other biblical events in the near future…
5. Paraná, Brazil (2013)
We’ll see you fish-raining phenomena and raise you… spiders. Yes, spiders! In 2013, in the small town of Santo Antônio da Platina in the Paraná state of far southern Brazil, hundreds and hundreds of spiders rained down through the air. They fell from trees, telephone poles, and wires high above the streets.
For nearly an hour, these little eight-legged fellas flew through the air and allowed gravity to help them land just as if they were falling down in a rainstorm. Now, if we were in Santo Antônio da Platina on that day, we would have absolutely freaked out. But animal behavioral experts weren’t worried at all! In fact, spider rain is actually a totally normal and expected phenomenon. Who knew?!
Marta Fischer, a biologist, spoke to the media about the unusual event of Brazil’s 2013 spider rain, explaining that it was 'totally normal.' The spiders in question were the arachnid species Anelosimus eximius, commonly known as 'social spiders.' These creatures are highly active in groups, often moving together in search of food.
These spiders hang from high branches, telephone poles, and wires before launching themselves down to catch prey. 'They typically reside in trees during the day and in the late afternoon or early evening, they weave a sheet-like web,' Fischer shared. 'Each spider builds its own web, but they all come together to capture insects.' Let’s be honest—that sounds pretty creepy!
4. New South Wales, Australia (2015)
Fast forward two years to 2015, when the town of Goulburn in New South Wales, Australia, endured a WEEK-LONG spider rain. A week long?! While we can probably accept a few minutes of spiders raining from the sky, like what happened in Brazil in 2013, a whole week of it? No thanks! Residents of Goulburn noticed their homes quickly took on the appearance of deserted buildings or possibly even haunted houses as spiders flooded the area and rained down from the sky.
One local, Ian Watson, shared his experience with the Sydney Morning Herald about the relentless spider rain that blanketed his home. 'The entire place was covered in these little black spiderlings,' Watson recalled. 'And when I looked up at the sun, it was as if a tunnel of webs extended hundreds of meters into the sky.' He also mentioned that the swarm was so dense, spiders kept getting tangled in his beard. Yeah, that’s totally not creepy at all!
Surprisingly, Australia has experienced more than one spider rain event. In 1974, the town of Albury, also in New South Wales, went through its own multi-day spider rain. And, from a biological perspective, this phenomenon is just as common in Australia as it was in Brazil. Known as 'ballooning,' this natural behavior is understood by arachnologists.
Rick Vetter, a retired biologist from the University of California, explained the event to Live Science. 'Ballooning is a frequent behavior among many spiders,' Vetter said. 'They climb to a high place, stick their abdomen in the air, and release silk. Then they just take off. It happens around us all the time—we just don’t notice.' Well, perhaps we usually don’t notice, but we sure do when thousands of them fall nonstop for days!
3. Chihuahua, Mexico (2022)
In 2022, a flock of hundreds of birds flying high above the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua was caught on a security camera suddenly freezing mid-flight before plummeting to their deaths. This eerie event, dubbed 'bird rain,' was both unexpected and overwhelming. Some of the birds managed to recover, shook off the shock, and flew away. Others were rescued and given medical attention.
Sadly, most of the yellow-headed blackbirds that fell from the sky didn’t survive the fall, landing on roofs, streets, and sidewalks below. To make matters even more unsettling, the entire event was captured on camera. And we're not talking about a few birds here—there were hundreds. It truly was a 'rain storm' of birds!
Local authorities in Chihuahua found themselves struggling to explain why the birds perished. The birds had been migrating south from Canada on their annual journey, leading some to speculate that exhaustion might have played a role. However, this theory doesn’t account for why so many of them fell at the same time.
A more plausible explanation is that the flock either collided with nearby power lines, electrocuting themselves, or that they inhaled toxic fumes just before their fall, which could have caused all of them to be struck simultaneously in a massive group.
2. Louisiana, USA (2007)
We've seen fish, spiders, and tadpoles rain down from the sky, but how about worms? In 2007, the small town of Jennings, Louisiana, experienced an unusual event when worms began falling from the sky one afternoon as locals went about their usual day.
Clusters of tangled worms began to fall suddenly on unsuspecting people. Eleanor Beal, an employee at the local police department, was simply crossing the street when she was struck from above by a bunch of worms! 'When I saw that they were crawling, I said, ‘It’s worms! Get out of the way,’' Beal told the media. She quickly warned her co-workers to steer clear of the accumulating worm clumps in the streets.
While the origins of the worms remain unclear, one plausible explanation is that a waterspout, which struck the nearby Lacassine Bayou around the same time, may have been responsible. Officials suspect that the spout sucked up a large quantity of worms from the muddy ground, carried them through the air for several miles, and released them over Beal and her neighbors in Jennings.
1. Ishikawa, Japan (2009)
In 2009, a peculiar and baffling weather phenomenon occurred in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan: tadpoles fell from the sky. This wasn’t just a one-time event, but a series of incidents across several cities that lasted almost an entire month. The media referred to it as “a string of occurrences in multiple areas,” with residents frequently finding themselves caught in hailstorms of tadpoles.
Many people out in the open found themselves being hit by the tiny creatures, while others discovered deceased tadpoles on their cars and even atop their homes. One notable incident took place in Nanao, where a man discovered hundreds of tadpoles scattered across his car and in the surrounding parking lot after hearing them fall from the sky and rushing outside.
Less than 48 hours later, the city of Hakusan experienced another downpour of dead tadpoles. Scientists have attributed these bizarre tadpole storms to waterspouts and various other winds, which pick up water from bodies like oceans, rivers, and lakes, only to carry it for miles before releasing it on unsuspecting people. However, the residents of Ishikawa Prefecture were unconvinced by this explanation.
For one thing, no one reported any wind in the hours or days leading up to these unusual tadpole rains. Additionally, people dismissed another possible explanation: the idea that birds were dropping their food while soaring high above. While such an event might occur once or twice, locals reasoned, it certainly couldn’t happen hundreds of times across multiple cities over the course of a month!
