The Australian Fish Fall & Charles Fort's Reply

Originally posted by doodums
This story smells fishy to me. I don't buy it. I think some prankster got a bunch of fish and distributed them around town. Those fish are HUGE.

Well, if it was a prankster, then he pulled his prank for 2 consecutive days without being observed. The "prankster" explanation is a common quick answer when no other rational explanation can be offered; however, in any of the "prankster" scenarios, no prankster is ever apprehended.

I would present for your consideration the stories of live frogs raining down in broad daylight, witnessed as the events unfolded, that were predictably attributed to "pranksters"... even though the amphibians were found by the hundreds, hopping around up on high rooftops.

In the cases of some other bizarre sky falls, the "prankster" explanation falls flat yet again — as when tropical insects are found by the thousands high up in the snowy Alps.

Or when really large creatures come raining down, as when an entire flock of frozen ducks came plummeting out of the sky during a thunderstorm in Worcester, Massachusetts, back in 1933. Each duck was encased in a giant ball of hail.

Now, I can almost understand the frozen ducks. A sudden and very powerful updraft slingshots the flock of birds from around a thousand feet in altitude up to around 50,000 feet in altitude (yeah, right), where they are frozen solid, swirling about high in a stratonimbus formation, until their 9-lb bodies accumulate so much ice that they finally come hurtling out of the heavens as 15-lb ice boulders.

It's still a stretch of the imagination.

Or, a "prankster" went scurrying willy-nilly around Worcester, tossing 15-lb duck-cubes into the streets in the middle of a torrential thunderstorm.

Still a stretch.

The only thing more plausible about the duck story is that the birds were quite dead, frozen to death. It's when live animals come raining out of the sky that things get really weird.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by MOTT the HOOPLE
Why can't hundred dollar bills fall from the sky?

Well... Money does fall out of the sky, as well. In many instances, people have seen coinage come flickering down from the heavens. One of my favorite stories concerned an American woman working in her garden when a brand new, shiny French franc came tumbling down and landed in her garden, almost at her feet.

She looked everywhere for a culprit distributing French francs at ground level, but she observed no suspects in the area. Then it occurred to her that it fell out of a passenger jet — but, of course, it's impossible to open a door or window on a passenger jet in-flight; and, if anyone could open a door on a passenger jet in-flight, a lot more than a French franc would come raining out of the sky.



— Doc Velocity

reply to post by Doc Velocity


Yes Fort called them TELEPORTING WHIRLWINDS

[edit on 28-2-2010 by drew hempel]

reply to post by Doc Velocity


Lo! is definitely my favorite as well.

Originally posted by redgy
For a fact that there has been torrential rains in the area, which presumably means high winds and the right kind of conditions for producing these tornado's, why is it so difficult to think that these weren't the causes behind such an event... even I have seen pearch (fingerling size) fall amongst rain and storm, but have always put it down to being blown by the winds and not of some supernatural event.

Well, of course, anything is possible; yet, there is no more scientific evidence to account for these sky falls than there is supernatural evidence.

So, either theory is plausible, in the absence of evidence. We can't just say "a tornado is responsible" any more than we can say "a Mad Fishmonger is responsible" or "a wizard in a cave somewhere is responsible"... Until Science gets off its ass and investigates the phenomenon thoroughly — which includes replicating the effect under controlled conditions — then we have no reason to accept a rational explanation any more readily than an irrational one.

— Doc Velocity

reply to post by Solasis


Must say, I'm rather enchanted by hte concept of a deity who's existence, who's sole purpose for being... is to drop fish from clouds.

it does sound oddly fulfilling, doesn't it?

Could this same phenomenon have occurred 2000 years ago spawning the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes?
The people came with 2 fish and left with 7 baskets full. This is the first thing I thought of when I heard the story. I know it doesn't give theory to how it happened, but insight perhaps to one of the stories from the bible.

Originally posted by drew hempel
Yes Fort called them TELEPORTING WHIRLWINDS

Right. You know, not many people are aware of it, but Charles Fort invented the terms "teleport" and "teleportation"... Before Fort coined the term teleportation, the phenomenon was called "apportation" and the items that appeared from thin air were known as "apports" — I assume apportation was a combination of apparitional (as in ghostly) and portation (as to move an object from one location to another); hence, literally, ghostly movement.

Apportation was a big hit back during the Spiritualist Movement of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. In close company with seances and channel mediums, apportation involved manifesting peculiar things out of thin air by some supernatural means.

Strangely enough, I believe Stanford University still posseses a number of "apports" that were obtained under controlled scientific conditions. A medium (the exact name isn't coming to mind) sat down with a few very skeptical scientists at Stanford — back in the early 20th Century, I think — and proceeded to cause things to appear in mid-air inside a locked birdcage right before the eyes of the stunned observers.

These items included a stuffed bird, a mirror, a hairbrush, and a few other things, as I recall. Things that you couldn't easily slip through the bars of a birdcage.

After the experiment, the scientists carted the birdcage and its contents away, examined them thoroughly, then locked them up in the university basement without further comment.

That's the Scientific Community for you.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 3/1/2010 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by recycled
Could this same phenomenon have occurred 2000 years ago spawning the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes?
The people came with 2 fish and left with 7 baskets full. This is the first thing I thought of when I heard the story. I know it doesn't give theory to how it happened, but insight perhaps to one of the stories from the bible.

See my last post. There was a lot of "apportation" going on back during the Spiritualist Movement, so I know that things can be made to seem to appear out of thin air.

How Jesus could have "apported" a couple of tons of fishes and loaves to feed a crowd of 5000 people without supernatural means is a poser. It's not that easy to hide 2 tons of fish and loaves in broad daylight, distribute it, and still have fish and loaves left over.

I haven't seen David Copperfield or Criss Angel attempt it, that's for sure.

— Doc Velocity




[edit on 2/28/2010 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
Must say, I'm rather enchanted by hte concept of a deity who's existence, who's sole purpose for being... is to drop fish from clouds.

it does sound oddly fulfilling, doesn't it?

Fort pondered who and how and why such otherworldly forces would do such a thing... Unless, of course, it was in answer to prayers.

Fort cited many documented cases of drought and famine that were suddenly — sometimes cataclysmically — answered by torrential downpours and the fall of foodstuffs from on-high.

See the book of Exodus in the Old Testament for more on that.

When the Hebrews were escaping from Egypt, starving in the badlands, God dropped manna on them, right. Not once, but a few times. Interesting thing about that story is that the Hebrews were free to gather as much sky-fallen manna as necessary to feed themselves and their families... But, if they got greedy and tried to hoard manna, the excess would rapidly decay before they could use it.

Very peculiar.

Fort even imagined that God — or a God-like mechanism — was still absentmindedly distributing food in the same way, even today, sending rains of fish and other edibles where they were needed most.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 2/28/2010 by Doc Velocity]

reply to post by doodums


Distributed all around town very very quickly without being seen by anyone! What a clever prankster he is!

Originally posted by Solasis
Distributed all around town very very quickly without being seen by anyone! What a clever prankster he is!

An energetic bastard, for sure, but probably assisted by an army of fish & crab-hurling demons, hauling truckload-sized wagons of fresh seafood through the streets... without being observed.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by zachi
I have also read of stuff falling from the sky. Sometimes is is related to poltergist activity.

Well, there's something unnatural going on in many reported sky falls — whether or not it's poltergeistic in nature has yet to be determined, because "real scientists" don't investigate poltergeist activity, either.

One of the most surreal sky fall stories involves a rain of stones from an otherwise clear sky. Not only were the stones observed to "fall slowly" from above, but stones on the ground were seen to slowly levitate, as if rising up to meet the falling stones.

Additionally, stones were reported to have passed through the roofs of homes without leaving holes in the roofs or ceilings.

As though, somehow, molecular electromagnetism was also being defied during the event.

I believe that story is from Fort, as well, but I'd have to look it up for exact location and news source.

But, just considering the details of the stony sky fall, it sounds as though something was interrupting all known physical laws — most interestingly, it was interrupting both electromagnetism and gravity at the same time.

Which would indicate, according to modern science, if we took such things seriously, that this was a Fifth Dimensional disturbance. Some physicists think that the link between electromagnetism and gravity resides in the Fifth Dimension, which makes our Unified Field Theory so infuriatingly difficult to prove.

What if, let's say, there was something happening in the Fifth Dimension, far removed from our Four Dimensional powers of observation, that was bleeding over into our existence in such a way that it disrupted molecular electromagnetism and gravity?

Such that stones simultaneously fell slowly and levitated and passed through solid objects in our space for the duration of the disturbance in the Fifth Dimension?

The answer may be within our grasp inside of this century, as we are at this moment tampering with the physical forces of creation, sticking our noses into the Fifth Dimension, as it were.

And wouldn't it be extraordinary if all of these weird "supernatural" phenomena, dating far back into history, were the result of our scientific tampering in this century?

— Doc Velocity

Doc velocity, methinks you read too much into it and make many assumptions.
You give too much credit to accuracy, validity, truth of what is reported.
There may well have been smaller fish, plantlife, other critters, that simply were not reported since the fish drew the most attention.
They may have been live because they did not hit the ground at any great speed, but gradually eased toward the ground by the waning strength of the tornado that picked them up, live, because quite a volume of water may also have been picked up and because they may not have gone so high, nor been airborne long enough to die by asphixiation.
Two consecutive days is no hard one, weather patterns vary.
Larger live fish are much more sensational than smaller dead ones. Note the bias photography of fish in a bucket, no shots of the ground.
Single species is also explainable
Spangled perch are very agressive fish, they school and drive other speciesfrom isolated water holes.
Incidently, its beleived they can aestivate (survive in bottom mud or damp leaf litter) when waters dry up, which might explain them being alive.
Nothing fortean about it mate, unusual yes, mysterious no.

Going on the theory of timeshifting of some sort, I went to see when other occurrences of strange things falling from the sky had been documented. Upon typing in the year of the occurrences, going to wiki, and reading the important events in history for the years these phenomenons occurred, I was shocked to find how many of these years were accompanied by presidential inauguration. The only thing that provoked me to do so was a theory I had read once somewhere about both Bush administrations being rigged through time travel. Amazing really to ponder the idea. I love coincidences, they really make my days more interesting, and standing over the stove cooking dinner much more interesting with so much to ponder.
Oh and on a side note, makes me re-think the Australia/New Zealand in the wrong place thread....

Originally posted by recycled
Going on the theory of timeshifting of some sort, I went to see when other occurrences of strange things falling from the sky had been documented. Upon typing in the year of the occurrences, going to wiki, and reading the important events in history for the years these phenomenons occurred, I was shocked to find how many of these years were accompanied by presidential inauguration. The only thing that provoked me to do so was a theory I had read once somewhere about both Bush administrations being rigged through time travel. Amazing really to ponder the idea.

What if someone somewhere was, in fact using a time machine to achieve thier goals and a tear in the space time continum opened up in a different location, producing unpredicible results, as a by-product?

It really is a facinating avenue to look at.

How could anyone even prove that time/space continum shifts aren't actually occuring?

[edit on 28-2-2010 by In nothing we trust]

Originally posted by wayaboveitall
Nothing fortean about it mate, unusual yes, mysterious no.

You clearly don't know what Fortean means! As soon as there's something unusual, and you have to say "it may werll have been" and "it is believed that" to make it no longer mysterious, it is fortean!

reply to post by In nothing we trust


Well we could have asked Sadam, but they killed him. I take comfort in knowing I will understand it all someday, now I just enjoy spending my time speculating.

If someone/s are messing with the time line I'd dare say we will start seeing more that fish falling from the sky, as I am sure I am not the only one who feels the earth is spinning awfully fast these days.

Come on people please - the fish are not going to die from falling from that altitude - they have an incredibly different nuero system to humans - secondly they would not be up in the air that long - they are literally being hurled through the sky - thats it - not held their indefinitely. Fish also survive out of water for a LONG TIME - they breath air, however will drown due to excessive amounts of oxygen - anyone who has ever fished can tell you this.

The fish are of the same type and age because they are being sucked up from the surface of the water where schooling fish tend to congregate - this also explains why they are the same type and age as schools tend to be of the same age and are always the same type.

Pretty darn simple really - why are you all so eager to be led astray ??

reply to post by audas


Come on we are discussing fish falling from the sky. There must be humor in there, and there is boatloads of room for the imagination to swim around in. I don't see us falling of the proverbial deep end here.