Aquatic Animals Do Fall From the Sky

[Still Waters]

Tornadoes over water are too weak to lift sharks, but strong enough to bring smaller animals ashore.

Sharks fell from the sky in the SyFy Channel’s “Sharknado,” a campy movie that stirred up Internet buzz and is getting a sequel.

In real life, of course, sharks don’t fall from the sky. But fish, frogs, and alligators do—and scientists think the likely cause is a weather phenomenon called a “waterspout,” a term first coined in 1738 by traveler Thomas Shaw.

http://newswatch.nat...l-from-the-sky/

[Jacques Terreur]

i gotta admit i LOVED sharknado!!!

As for this phenomenon though, i don't love the waterspout explanation quite as much.....

on the first thought it's like "yeah of course, that's it!", but if you look into the reports about those "animal rains",

it's very often just one single species of animal that falls down. I would expect a watersprout not to be so picky.....

[WoIverine]

Frogs do, as the urban legend goes.

[Junior Chubb]

Animals have fallen from the sky in the past and will fall from the sky in the future...

[Jacques Terreur]

to anyone who's into that kind of stuff i highly recommend to read Charles Fort's "book of the damned".....

[pallidin]

"In real life, of course, sharks don’t fall from the sky. But fish, frogs, and alligators do..."

Well, thank you for my new random nightmare.

[ShadowSot]

Actually, while the theory is a waterspout, there's never been any actual witnessing of the animals falling.

And it seems kinda doubtful that animals would survive such a fall.

Frog for example have a tendency to go "splat" when dropped from a height.

[Jacques Terreur]

there are SO MANY reports of all sorts of animals falling from the sky, i am almost sure that there are some occurences where people actually watched it happen. But it's also true that if you drop, say, a frog from a certain height, it will flatten out pretty much....It's a very odd phenomenon, but i don't really buy in the waterspout theory, and i don't know if it would be that cool as a prank for people to stage these things over and over again.

[ShadowSot]

there are SO MANY reports of all sorts of animals falling from the sky, i am almost sure that there are some occurences where people actually watched it happen. But it's also true that if you drop, say, a frog from a certain height, it will flatten out pretty much....It's a very odd phenomenon, but i don't really buy in the waterspout theory, and i don't know if it would be that cool as a prank for people to stage these things over and over again.

There are many reports of say, after a rain storm seeing lots of frogs. But not a lot of reports of actually seeing them fall. Ther's the difference.

Skeptoid has a good write up about it.

[Jacques Terreur]

ah, nice read for some rather boring work hours, thx! i read the "book of the damned" years ago, so my memory isn't the best, but i could swear it contains a newspaper report of people getting hit by falling fish....

i go through that skeptoid article now to see what they say....