August 6, 2022

Mysticism or physics?

Have you ever been caught in a rain of frogs? What about a rain of gold coins? Such precipitation happens not only in fairy tales. These are very real cases that have occurred in different parts of our planet. Let's talk about the most unusual precipitation that fell on earth in the XXI century.
A rain of frogs fell on the inhabitants of the Serbian village of Kacja Janovik in 2005. Local residents made various assumptions about its origin. It was even assumed that the explosion of the plane carrying amphibians was to blame, but environmentalists found a simpler explanation: a strong whirlwind captured frogs at the nearest reservoir and brought them through the air to the village, as a hurricane brought the girl Ellie to a Magical land. Similar precipitation occurred in 2009 in Japan, in Ishikawa Prefecture, and in 2010 in the Croatian city of Rakocifalva.

Rain of spiders happens from time to time in Australia. Most often this happens in May and August, when newborn spiders climb to the treetops and make themselves parachutes from the web, which with the help of the wind carries them through the air to new habitats. But it is impossible to predict the behavior of the wind, sometimes it subsides, and balloonists rain down on the ground. The most impressive spider downpour occurred in 2015 in the city of Goulburn. The inhabitants, who were literally hit by millions of spiders from the sky, decided that the end of the world had come! Similar precipitation sometimes falls in South America, the USA, England.

A fish shower happens every year in Honduras near the city of Yoro. This usually happens between May and July, but of course it is impossible to predict the exact date. As a rule, everything starts at 5-6 pm. A dark cloud gathers in the sky, thunder rumbles, lightning flashes, and sardines begin to fall on the ground, which the locals are happy to collect. In honor of this event, a Fish Rain Festival has been held in Yoro since 1998. If we do not consider the mystical reasons, scientists explain the fish rains by the fact that strong tornadoes bring sardines from the ocean.

Red rain fell for 2 months in India, in the state of Kerala, in 2001. He greatly frightened the locals, who saw this as a bad sign. And they are easy to understand! But in fact, the red color of the rainwater was given by the spores of local lichens, so this downpour did not pose any danger to humans or animals. The cause of colored rain can be pollen of plants, particles of sand or earth trapped in it. So, in 2002 in another Indian village there was a green rain stained with mango pollen, in Chuvashia in 2020 – black due to wind-blown particles of chernozem, in Saratov in 2015 orange snow fell, containing sand particles from the African desert.

A rain of gold coins is probably the only one from our selection, under which it would be nice to walk. Such a case presented itself to residents of the Nizhny Novgorod region on June 17, 1940. Not far from the village of Meshchery, gold and silver coins of the XVI–XVII rained down from the sky. It turned out that the rain washed away the soil in the place where the treasure was once buried, and the hurricane that hit lifted the coins into the air and brought them to people.

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