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Falling Stuff
Mon Oct 17, 2005
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“Rain, rain, go away.” It’s not always just a children’s rhyme, especially when that rain is made up of stuff other than water. Hi, I’m Bryan Yeaton, and this is The Weather Notebook.
There are many documented—very well documented, in fact—cases of what are normally terrestrial materials falling from the sky: snails, fish, ice, rocks, frogs, coal, caterpillars, and seaweed just to name a few. There are at least one and possibly more instances where the falling fish were frozen! And this was in 1896, well before airplanes.
Most can be explained by phenomena such as tornadoes, waterspouts, and the like. But these explanations still leave plenty of room to wonder. Like, why do these droppings from the atmosphere only select one specific species? Surely there are more fish in the sea, as your mother used to say. And the lengthy and elliptical pattern in which some falls are arrayed, as science writer William Corliss points out, suggests that they have fallen, not from a local whirlwind, but from very high up in the atmosphere. Corliss also wonders why there is never accompanying sand, salt, or other debris along with the fall.
Perhaps one of the most interesting things to fall from the sky is pwdre ser, sometimes known as “star jelly,” or “rot of the stars.” Typically, witnesses see a meteor streaking through the sky, and crashing to earth. When they rush to the site, they find not solid rock, but a translucent mass of what is usually described as “putrid” jelly. According to physics as we understand it, gelatinous material should not survive a trip down through the atmosphere. It doesn’t last long on terra firma, either, quickly evaporating as the observers hold their noses and ponder.
The Weather Notebook is funded by Subaru of America. Check us out online at: www.weathernotebook.org. We are produced by the Mount Washington Observatory.
Today's Links
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_285.html
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