Without warning on an overcast Auckland, New Zealand day in 1977, the sky opened up and down came a rain of large and small coins, lumps of coal, nails, bits of crystal, broken bottles and paper money, much of it ripped to shreds. Even more extraordinary, this shower of cash and junk was directed at one house—and one house only; the home of the Thompson family. As one eyewitness put it, "It seemed as if the sky had opened up over the Thompson home and begun to discharge the most amazing amount of money and rubbish. Coins bounced off the roof and were scrambled for by the local children. Looking upward, it was a staggering and frightening sight. If you can imagine a hailstorm consisting of rubble and cash—all of it directed at only one house—that is what we saw." The phenomenon started during the early afternoon and quickly increased in fury. Windows soon shattered, and shards of glass spewed into the street, peppering and slicing the children and neighbors who watched in horror. One police officer was struck by a flying bottle as he exited his vehicle, rendering him unconscious for several minutes. When the bizarre rain finally stopped, it was followed by a human frenzy as bystanders raced around madly, scooping up coins (a total of $85.50 US had fallen in all). Despite a thorough investigation, police authorities were never able to explain what had happened that day.
From about 1982 to 1986, kernels of corn have rained down on several houses in Evans, Colorado - tons of it, according to Gary Bryan, one of the residents. Oddly, there were no cornfields in the area that might account for the phenomenon.
In 1833, something more unusual than fish fell from the sky over the town of Rahway, New Jersey. On November 13, locals saw what they described as “fiery rain” falling to the ground. When the glowing masses struck the ground, they turned into “lumps of jelly”. The lumps were said to be transparent and became round, flattened masses when they landed. Within hours, the jelly disintegrated and became a pile of small white particles that crumbled into dust when touched.
On June 15, 1857 a farmer who lived in Ottawa, Illinois reported that he heard a hissing sound in the sky and he looked up to see a shower of cinders falling to the earth. They landed on the ground in a V-shaped pattern about 50 feet from where he was standing and caused the ground to steam and the grass to catch fire. The larger cinders buried themselves into the earth and even the smallest pieces were inserted into the ground at least partially. The farmer, whose name was Bradley, noticed a small, dense and dark cloud “hanging over the garden” at the time of the fall. The weather that day had been damp and a little rainy but no thunder or lightning had been reported.
The children of Lake County, California must have been happy on the nights of September 2 and 11, 1857. According to the History of Napa and Lake Counties by Lyman L. Palmer, a shower of candy apparently fell on some portions of the county on those evenings. The report states: “It is said that on both of these nights there fell a shower of candy or sugar. The crystals were from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in length and the size of a goose quill. Syrup was made of it by some of the lady residents of the section.”
Scientific American also reported another strange occurrence in late October 1881 when Milwaukee, Green Bay and other towns in that part of Wisconsin saw falls of strong, very white spider webs. They were in sizes from a few inches to strands of more than 60 feet long. The webs all seemed to float inland from above Lake Michigan in thick sheets, fading upward into the sky for as high as the eye could see. There was no mention of any spiders being seen or in the presence of the webs and where the substance could have come from was a mystery.
Scientific American from February 1891 had another tale of strangeness from the skies concerning the Valley Bend district of Randolph County, West Virginia. It seems that over the course of that winter, they were several occasions when ground was thickly covered with worms. Since the snow had been two feet deep at the times when the worms were discovered, and there was a hard crust on the top of it, they seemingly fell from the sky along with the fresh snow. They were said to be a species of ordinary “cut worms” and were abundant enough that a “square foot of snow can scarcely be found on some days without a dozen of these worms on it.”
On September 4, 1886, a shower of warm stones purportedly fell on the offices of the News and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina. The first shower occurred around 2:30 in the morning and then was repeated at 7:30 and then again at 1:30 in the afternoon. As far as any observers could see, the stones fell only over a small area directly above the newspaper offices. They came down with great force and even broke apart on the pavement. The rocks were described as polished pebbles of flint with the smallest being about the size of a grape and the largest as big as a hen’s egg.
Carpenters who were working on the roof of a house in Shreveport, Louisiana had to take cover on July 12, 1961 when a brief deluge of green peaches began falling from the sky. They were all about the size of golf balls and were believed to have fallen from a dark cloud that was spotted overhead. According to the local weather bureau, the conditions around the city that day were not sufficient to cause whirlwinds, tornadoes or water spouts. Even a strong updraft would not have been enough to carry peaches into the sky, leaving those who witnessed the event to scratch their heads in confusion.
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