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Fulshear Fish Fall

Sharon Hill

Complicated biological machine
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
1,804
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
Back on January 16, there was a reported fish fall during a snow and sleet event outside of Houston, Tx. The weather event was weird, but not that weird, until one suburban neighborhood reported fish with the ice pellets.

Only ONE news outlet covered the story. But Paul Cropper and I discussed it extensively on my Group of Fort facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/GroupOfFort/

Paul (in Australia) did some extra inquiries to residents, meteorologists and ichthyologists to get more info. This may turn out to be one of the best-documented cases on record as it certainly does appear the fish ACTUALLY fell. The waterspout idea is thoroughly out the window.

Check out the interview I did with Paul for my podcast.
https://soundcloud.com/15credstreet/34-credible-vs-the-un-credible

That page also contains links to the other discussion page that has photos submitted by the residents and from the news broadcast.

Here is the original story which isn't much: https://www.click2houston.com/news/winter-storms-deliver-fish-in-fulshear-residents-yards
 
Nice podcast.
Halfway through, so haven't heard any conclusions yet. If the interviewee has no ideas, what are the other plausible theories besides the waterspout idea?
 
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...sh-frogs-and-golf-balls-fall-skies-180956527/

“I always find the frogs and the fish to be weird,” says John Knox, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Georgia. “And I’m not sure we total understand that, but it seems that it has to be that somewhere there’s a waterspout or a tornado … something must have gone over a lake, sucked up a bunch of fish” or other material and dropped it somewhere else.

How far an object travels depends on shape, weight and wind, Knox says. In his studies of tornado debris, he has documented printed photographs that traveled as far as 200 miles and a metal sign that flew about 50 miles. “That sign went up and did the magic carpet ride,” landing in the next state, he says.

Dust, the usual culprit behind oddly colored rains, can travel a lot farther. Yellow dust that fell on western Washington in 1998 was traced to the Gobi Desert. And the Sahara can spread its dust thousands of miles across the Atlantic. “If that dust plume interacts with some precipitation, then you’ve got the ingredients where the dust is washed out in rainfall,” says Lamb. “The color of the rain will probably reflect the mineral composition of the source.”

The Saharan dust produces red rains, for instance, and the Gobi Desert yellow ones. Black rains can come from volcanoes or from pollution. Dirty, greasy rains that turned sheep black in 19th-century Europe were linked to the soot from the great manufacturing centers in England and Scotland. And in more recent history, the burning of Kuwaiti oil wells in the Gulf War in 1991 caused black rain and snow to fall in India.

The source of colored rains is not always clear. A mysterious red rain has sometimes fallen on the southwest coast of India. “People have observed red stains so rich they can stain white clothes pink,” Barnett writes. Researchers have found tiny red particles in the precipitation that look like cells, but what those cells might be has yet to be determined.

And there is one yellow rain that fell on villages in Laos in 1978 that has people still arguing over what actually happened. Refugees claimed that the substance fell from planes or helicopters, and some experts suspected that it was a chemical weapons attack. But other scientists proposed a different cause: mass “defecation flights” by honeybees that rained yellow bee feces.

But while rains of objects or colored rains may seem odd, they are more common than we realize. In the early 20th century, Charles Hoy Fort collected around 60,000 newspaper reports that described falls of everything from frogs and snakes to cinders and salt. Even that milky rain in the Pacific Northwest wasn’t a first for the area, notes Lamb.

“Here in eastern Washington, we’ve experienced those kinds of rains periodically,” he says.


Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...lls-fall-skies-180956527/#QpYju9GR4A6KxaGZ.99
 
https://www.livescience.com/44760-raining-frogs.html

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Charles Fort was an early collector of reports about strange phenomena.
Credit: Public domain.
Charles Fort, an early collector of reports about strange phenomena, noted the following in his 1919 tome, "The Book of the Damned": "A shower of frogs which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance is the reported result of a recent rainstorm at Kansas City, Mo." This report first appeared in the July 12, 1873, issue of Scientific American. Fort noted dozens of similar reports from around the world and wrote that as "for accounts of small frogs, or toads, said to have been seen to fall from the sky, [a skeptical] writer says that all observers were mistaken: that the frogs or toads must have fallen from trees or other places overhead."
...

Explanations?
The most likely explanation for how small frogs get up into the sky in the first place is meteorological: a whirlwind, tornado or other natural phenomenon. Fort admitted that this is a possibility, but offered several reasons why he doubted that's the true or complete explanation: "It is so easy to say that small frogs that have fallen from the sky had been scooped up by a whirlwind ... but [this explanation offers] no regard for mud, debris from the bottom of a pond, floating vegetation, loose things from the shores — but a precise picking out of the frogs only. ... Also, a pond going up would be quite as interesting as frogs coming down. Whirlwinds we read of over and over — but where and what whirlwind? It seems to me that anybody who had lost a pond would be heard from." For example, Fort argued, one published report of "a fall of small frogs near Birmingham, England, June 30, 1892, is attributed to a specific whirlwind — but not a word as to any special pond that had contributed."

What about the reasons that Fort and others cite for why a whirlwind is not a good explanation? Frogs and fish do not of course live in the sky, nor do they suddenly and mysteriously appear there; in fact they share a common habitat: ponds and streams. It's certain that they gained altitude in a natural, not supernatural, way. [Countdown: Fishy Rain to Fire Whirlwinds: The World's Weirdest Weather]

That there are very few eyewitness accounts of frogs and fish being sucked up into the sky during a tornado, whirlwind or storm is hardly mysterious or unexplainable. Anytime winds are powerful enough to suck up fish, frogs, leaves, dirt and detritus, they are powerful enough to be of concern to potential eyewitnesses. In other words, people who would be close enough to a whirlwind or tornado to see the flying amphibians would be more concerned for their own safety (and that of others) to pay much attention to whether or not some frogs are among the stuff being picked up and flown around at high speeds. These storms are loud, windy, chaotic, and hardly ideal for accurate eyewitness reporting.

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A 1555 engraving of a rain of fish.
Credit: Public domain.
The same applies to Fort's apparent surprise that, following frog falls, farmers or others don't come forward to identify which specific pond the frogs came from. How would anyone know? Whirlwinds and tornadoes may move quickly and over many miles, destroying and lifting myriad debris in its wake. Unless a farmer took an inventory of all the little frogs in a pond both before and after a storm, there's no way anyone would know exactly where they came from, nor would it be noteworthy.

Of course, a wind disturbance need not be a full-fledged tornado to be strong enough to pick up small frogs and fish; smaller, localized versions such as waterspouts and dust devils — which may not be big enough, potentially damaging enough, or near enough to populated areas to be reported in the local news — may do the trick.

High winds, whirlwinds and tornadoes are strong enough to overturn cars and rip the roofs off of buildings. In 2012, a 2-year-old Indiana girl was lifted into the air during a storm, and, incredibly, carried into the sky and found alive 10 miles away. Strong winds are certainly powerful enough to lift up and carry frogs into the air. It is, of course, possible that there is some unknown, small-frog-levitating force at work in nature, but until and unless that is verified, it seems likely that this mystery is solved after all.
 
skinny: These are the sites that people find when they google the phenomena and just assume that is what happened. But, as I said, whirlwind/waterspout is not relevant here. It didn't appear to happen. No one reported even more than moderate wind. What's the answer? Unknown; a true mystery.
 
No one reported even more than moderate wind.

The Click2Houston website link you posted did:

"There was a strong north wind blowing Tuesday. The Metzes and their neighbors suspect these fish may have been scooped up from two small ponds in the neighborhood just north of their homes."
 
The Click2Houston website link you posted did:

"There was a strong north wind blowing Tuesday. The Metzes and their neighbors suspect these fish may have been scooped up from two small ponds in the neighborhood just north of their homes."

We've looked at the winds and the weather radar. Paul checked with a local meteorologist. Winds were no more than 20-30 mph and no one in the neighborhood reported gusts associated with the fish. The fish were marine, not from ponds, as far as we know right now. Also, someone needs to explain how a wind can pick up one kind of fish from the water and distribute them across a square mile.
 
The fish were marine, not from ponds, as far as we know right now. Also, someone needs to explain how a wind can pick up one kind of fish from the water and distribute them across a square mile.

Hard to tell from the pictures, but they look like a pretty common minnow-type fish, possibly shiner. If the waterspout theory is correct, I wouldn't say it's unusual to only pick up one kind of fish as they tend to swim in shoals.

Still, fish falls are always fun (except for the fish, presumably).
 
Hard to tell from the pictures, but they look like a pretty common minnow-type fish, possibly shiner. If the waterspout theory is correct, I wouldn't say it's unusual to only pick up one kind of fish as they tend to swim in shoals.

I posted links to our information where a local university ichthyologists identified the fish as gulf menhaden. Samples have been sent for further I.D. I see no evidence that the waterspout speculation makes sense for any fish fall (though they are varied and have various potential solutions). Waterspouts or tornadoes do not suck things up, they blow things apart. It's overly simplistic to surmise that 200 of these fish in a shoal were all picked up from the water by a whirlwind and transported together 80 miles away where they were dropped on a 1 mile square area. Since that has never been definitively demonstrated to have occurred and is implausible, we must seek better conclusions.

I'd be very interested if anyone has actual documentation about the waterspout/tornado idea because it doesn't sound plausible to me.

Clarification: Smaller, lighter objects are obviously transported long distances in the upper atmosphere. The problem is picking up a living thing with substantial weight beyond sand grains or leaves, etc.
 
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the biggest weirdness about those cases is that the fall is always of an specific animal or in some very rare cases object
almost as if some intelligence was behind it
 
almost as if some intelligence was behind
Ah, but equal surface areas/weights/brood populations/common source vectors can all contribute to the semblance of sentient selectivity. We shall call it the Seemingly-Celestial Sieve

Annoyingly-enough....
 
The Seemingly-Celestial Steve

And indeed it may well be so. For blesséd are those of The Steve.

(The true ascended one, from Macclesfield. Who rode into the heavens upon his Honda CB250K4, since his Triumph had been stolen)
 
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Ah, but equal surface areas/weights/brood populations/common source vectors can all contribute to the semblance of sentient selectivity. We shall call it the Seemingly-Celestial Sieve

Annoyingly-enough....
but why reports of different species arent more common?
 
He's got you, Erms. Just lay down.
Never going to happen....

but why reports of different species arent more common?
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean with your question.

My faux postulation is that whatever physical selection mechanism is involved, it seems to favour either a specific species and/or location.

Let's presume (from a flora:fauna:fit) perspective that these are equivalencies (this is not as crazy as it sounds: an ecological niche, location or hierarchy, is occupied by any given species within a predictable predation/domain pyramid).

It is extremely-unusual for two convergent* species-types to co-exist within the same bounded environment. And even more unusual for two divergent /interpredatory species to co-exist within a common area. [nb I summarise, simplify and skip over many counter-examples, eg symbiotes and locations with limited resource, but I'm attempting to convey a theory]. (* importantly....any given eco-niche will tend to be occupied by an exact speciated group. Hence the eco-tension between red & grey squirrels. Or beavers & otters. Only one species will tend occupy one viable exploitable space...overlaps are simply uneasy killing zones)

Therefore...if we presume for the purposes of this that the...upsuck (whatever or however it is) sucks-up at a location....the bioset so upsucked will tend to be single species. So, young Arctic Charr will be (in this theory) present during a drop, and not young brown trout, hitching a side-ride. Despite similar size/weight/scale/surface area.

Because they (the notional Charr) occupy the mysteriously-upsucked precise location...a loch/lake/lochan, whilst the trouted river Xhundred metres away remains untouched.
 
Never going to happen....


Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean with your question.

My faux postulation is that whatever physical selection mechanism is involved, it seems to favour either a specific species and/or location.

Let's presume (from a flora:fauna:fit) perspective that these are equivalencies (this is not as crazy as it sounds: an ecological niche, location or hierarchy, is occupied by any given species within a predictable predation/domain pyramid).

It is extremely-unusual for two convergent* species-types to co-exist within the same bounded environment. And even more unusual for two divergent /interpredatory species to co-exist within a common area. [nb I summarise, simplify and skip over many counter-examples, eg symbiotes and locations with limited resource, but I'm attempting to convey a theory]. (* importantly....any given eco-niche will tend to be occupied by an exact speciated group. Hence the eco-tension between red & grey squirrels. Or beavers & otters. Only one species will tend occupy one viable exploitable space...overlaps are simply uneasy killing zones)

Therefore...if we presume for the purposes of this that the...upsuck (whatever or however it is) sucks-up at a location....the bioset so upsucked will tend to be single species. So, young Arctic Charr will be (in this theory) present during a drop, and not young brown trout, hitching a side-ride. Despite similar size/weight/scale/surface area.

Because they (the notional Charr) occupy the mysteriously-upsucked precise location...a loch/lake/lochan, whilst the trouted river Xhundred metres away remains untouched.
there are also weirder reports on record, like meat falls, slime falls and even worm falls
so something else is up here
 
there are also weirder reports on record, like meat falls, slime falls and even worm falls
so something else is up here
All such phenomena likely have various causes. It's probably not the best bet to group weird rains except casually (not causally) since they have different qualities.
 
All such phenomena likely have various causes. It's probably not the best bet to group weird rains except casually (not causally) since they have different qualities.
the reports usually describe the same thing: weird stuff falling from the sky like rain
the only exception to that rule that i can remenber right now, is an case where an random fisher was hit in the head by an frozen squid that semmed to come from nowhere
 
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