The Australian Fish Fall & Charles Fort's Reply

Certainly you've all read of the recent fish fall occurring for 2 consecutive days in Northern Australia.

How very Fortean.

Fact is, "raining fish" is a very, very old phenomenon, witnessed on numerous occasions all around the planet for centuries. Until the advent of meteorological science, there was never really a plausible explanation.

Come to think of it, even meteorological science can't explain it.

Because nobody has ever witnessed a tornado sucking up a body of water and casting its contents out upon the surface of the earth, for one thing. All Science has is an unsupported theory of how these fish falls occur.

Of course, it makes perfect sense, doesn't it, that a tornado might conceivably vacuum a pond or small lake dry. It certainly has enough pressurized force to accomplish such a feat.

HOWEVER... It makes no sense whatsoever that these fish falls are, invariably, of only one species of fish, and that the fish are of all about the same level of maturity.

In this Australian fall, for instance, over a period of 2 days, there were no reports of small fry (very young fish), but only of mature live perch of one species.

Where were the other species of fish? Where were the freshwater turtles, the freshwater insects, the freshwater aquatic plants? Why didn't the entire living contents of a pond or lake come raining down from the sky?

Why just one species of perch, and all of about the same level of maturity?

Science has a ready (if uninvestigated) explanation for that, as well.

They claim that organisms of different mass will fall at different rates from the sky — for example, young adult perch will all fall out of the sky in a group because they all have, more or less, the same mass. The small fry fish, being much less massive than the adults, will fall in a group somewhere else, at a different time.

Except that the small fry are apparently never recovered in these sky falls. They seemingly never return to earth, they're still up there swirling about in the clouds.

Which is, of course, preposterous.

Charles Fort, the intermediatist, had just as preposterous a notion: He theorized that otherworldly forces deposited living organisms where they were most needed on the Earth's surface.



That's ridiculous, and Fort knew it was ridiculous, but it was no more ridiculous than the scientific explanation that had no evidence whatsoever to back it up.

Another fact that is very unusual is that the same thing happened on 2 consecutive days in northern Australia. Same fish, same level of maturity, and ALIVE, fell out of the sky on 2 consecutive days.

Now, unless there was a stampede of tornados, otherwise undetected and unwitnessed by anyone, for 2 consecutive days, HOW does Science account for living specimens of the exact same species (but no other species) falling out of the sky for 2 consecutive days?

And how does any living organism of the same mass as these fish fall out of the sky — let's just say, conservatively, from an altitude of 5000 feet (fairly low altitude) — and impact the surface of the earth, and then start flipping and flopping about?

How does that work?

Next time I'm in a light aircraft at low altitude, I'm going to try tossing live fish out of the window and just see how many of them survive a 5000-foot impact on solid ground.

I think I can predict the results. None will survive, because they'll hit the earth traveling at about 80 mph.

The whole question of live terrestrial animals raining out of the sky — be they fish or crabs or frogs, all of which have rained down in the past — is a profound mystery that Science has never even investigated, much less satisfactorily explained.

They leave these mysteries uninvestigated and unexplained for a reason... It's because then they'd have to report their true findings.

There were no tornados, quite obviously. Live fish and frogs and crabs do not fall out of the sky even at low altitude and survive the impact, quite obviously.

Not according to known physical laws.

Which would indicate that unknown physical laws were at play. And Science hates to admit that it doesn't even partially understand physical laws.

— Doc Velocity






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

very good point about them hitting the ground softly... it means something...

The idea of isolated space/time relocation events comes to mind.

What if it's not atmospherics, aliens, god, c-130 cargo planes, etc but it's due to time travel/time shifts? (i.e. 6 million B.C. an ocean exists with fish swimming around, bam - space time continum shifts and where there was once a lake now there is only air and land down below.)

Just an idea.

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

Excellent post Doc!
So true - So ridiculous.

A friend of mine, who for all intents and purposes seems non interested in conspiracy theories has a solution to the falling fish syndrome.

In his words what is happening is that in the future someone is playing with, testing a time machine. The fish are transported back in time and land where there in the future there is water.
mmmm

It actually seems as plausable as the official stories I think. Or maybe I need a holiday !



Respects

Originally posted by In nothing we trust
What if it's not atmospherics, aliens, god, c-130 cargo planes, etc but it's due to time travel/time shifts?

I've very much with you on that idea.

I say that because of the related phenomenon — or unrelated, depending on how you want to look at it — of stones falling out of the sky.

I'm not talking about meteoritic stones, not meteorites, but of terrestrial stones, water-worn stones, that sometimes rain down over large areas. Interestingly, as Charles Fort and others reported, these terrestrial stones were often warm to the touch when witnesses retrieved them.

In addition, in more than one reported instance, the stones were observed to "fall slowly," as though almost riding on a cushion of air or anti-gravity of some sort. I find the "slow fall" description very curious, indeed.

It sounds like some sort of interdimensional effect that somehow temporarily negates our known physical laws of mass, velocity, inertia, and gravity.

The more grisly sky falls, which I'm sure you've all read about, involve falls of shredded, bloody meat — apparently mammalian in origin, as some bits were covered in bristling mammalian hair. The typical, if laughable, "scientific" explanation for those sky falls is that they are regurgitated from nauseous buzzards.

Of course, in the incidents of "meat falls," we're talking about enormous areas of land covered in bloody flesh — say, 900 feet by 300 feet swaths of land. How does Science explain that? Perhaps a squadron of several hundred vomitous vultures all puking simultaneously?



The explanation, as incredible as it may seem, that most reasonably accounts for all of these sky falls is some sort of as-yet-poorly-understood time dilation, as of specimens from one time frame suddenly finding themselves deposited from mid-air in another time frame, like passing through a wormhole of some sort.

Whether this would be a naturally-occurring or artificial wormhole is anyone's guess. But I'm inclined to think that these sky falls are of experimental payloads delivered to our present from somebody else's present.

Perhaps, in the cases of living fish, frogs, crabs, and insects raining down, the experiment goes very right. In the cases of freshly shredded, bloody meat raining down, perhaps the experiment has gone catastrophically wrong.

— Doc Velocity

I think it's the Mad Fishmonger; a strange prankster god, possibly an aspect of either Eris or Yahweh, or possibly a very minor and confusing Elder God of a Lovecraftian style pantheon. He does this with complete indifference to the results to the fish or the humans, but instead because it's just what he does. We reinterpret him as mad and a prankster because that's the way we think; in fact, he's just really really weird compared to us.

Originally posted by Solasis
I think it's the Mad Fishmonger...

Yeah, I love the Mad Fishmonger explanation, put forth in English newspapers to explain a fish & crab sky fall in the 19th Century. I think it was Charles Fort's favorite explanation.

Fort pointed out that if it was, indeed, the work of a Mad Fishmonger, then he had lots of assistance and tons of fish and crab to throw away... That particular sky fall covered several acres of an urban area, with fish and crabs distributed not only at street level, but high up on 2-story rooftops and in rain gutters.

And the perpetrators would have had to accomplish this incredible act of mischief in a matter of minutes without being observed.



— Doc Velocity

reply to post by Doc Velocity


That's why I transformed him into a "super"natural being!

Or perhaps it was one ordinary man with a time machine!

Or an army of ordinar people with super speed

Or an army of one ordinary man with an army of superfast time machines

Why can't hundred dollar bills fall from the sky?

reply to post by captiva


Thank you for posting something I never even thought of!!!! I usually think inside the box and it is hard to look out. Your friend might be right. And something really makes me wonder about this. It is hard to wrap my head around.

And flag to the OP for starting the thread I love topics like this it is a nice break.

very interesting, this isnt really being reported in australia, its under Wacky World section of our national paper, close to the back, which thinks Whitney Housten touring is more important than this and the Mossad assassinations. I think the tornado theory is inncorrect due to exactly what OP has mentioned the same type of fish, same age and the fact they are alive, as well as nothing else being dropped and no reported tornados, but i have no answers, i like the exotic theorys of time manipulation/travel and there are alot of strange going ons in the middle of Oz re: UFO repots, US millitary Pine gap + a whole heap of open space. Cheerz for the thread

reply to post by Doc Velocity


I've been interested in Fort's work for a while, I was flabbergasted when in my teen years I read about the bizarre events that he recorded. But if you think about the scientific response to such events it makes far more sense than changing our whole view of psychics to believe they popped out of a time portal or learned how to fly.

Also, the reason only one species of fish might be reported is simple, perhaps only a school of one kind of fish was pulled up. Some fish do travel in groups. Also, I highly doubt every fish that fell was measured for levels of maturity, there easily could have been some so-called small-fries who just didn't get reported.

The Universe we live in is very strange and there may well be unknown forces at play here, but we must rule out all other so-called "normal" circumstances. It'd be great to get some scientists and instrumentation out to one of these Fish Falls and see if they can find anything, well, fishy, unfortunately these things seem rather random. Predicting weather is hard enough, predicting when fish are gonna fall from the sky... that's a bit tougher.

lets try that again


www.dailytelegraph.com.au...
link to story in National Paper+ picture of fish


[edit on 28-2-2010 by deenuu]

I just dropped back in to let you know that this thread has inspired me to finally get unlazy and check out The Book of the Damned from my college library! I'm really looking forward to reading it

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
I've been interested in Fort's work for a while, I was flabbergasted when in my teen years I read about the bizarre events that he recorded.

If you find Fort interesting, although dated, you should try reading up the works of William R. Corliss, who, like Fort, has spent decades collecting stories from very reputable sources regarding these sky falls and many, many other bizarre occurrences:

Website of William R. Corliss

I've written to Corliss on several occasions, he's a very knowledgeable fellow, and his collection of bizarre facts (called The Sourcebook Project) is one of the deepest rabbit holes you're likely to find anywhere.

I've asked Corliss what he would charge me for copies of everything he's amassed, and he consistently tells me the entire library can be had for around a thousand bucks.

As soon as I have a grand to spare, I'm going to place my order. It should take only a year or so to read the entire Corliss library, if I put my mind to it for 12 hours a day.

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
It'd be great to get some scientists and instrumentation out to one of these Fish Falls and see if they can find anything, well, fishy, unfortunately these things seem rather random.

Actually, sky falls happen with some peculiar regularity. It just depends on where they happen that determines whether or not they get front-page coverage. I mean, when it happens in Baltimore, Maryland, right on the back porch of Washington, DC, it gets plenty of coverage for a day or so — and, yes, it's happened in Baltimore.

You would think that "scientists" — particularly in the region of the nation's capital — would know if there were tornados in the area, but apparently not. All they ever say is that "a tornado" probably dumped a load of live fish, even though there are no reported sightings of tornados.

What I would like to see are some thoughtful witnesses collecting specimens of these living sky falls for DNA analysis. I mean, through comparative DNA tracking, a competent scientist could trace a species of fish to its home body of water, right?

Right.

Once you traced a specimen back to its home, you just look for signs of tornado damage in the area, right? Right. Apparently, no modern scientists have even thought of this simple and very feasible method of discovery.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Solasis
I just dropped back in to let you know that this thread has inspired me to finally get unlazy and check out The Book of the Damned from my college library! I'm really looking forward to reading it

The Book of the Damned is a good introduction to Fort, but I prefer his later writing, particularly Lo!, in which he gets into some really creepy descriptions of the Johnstown Flood — a phenomenal tragedy by any measure — as well as accounts of Lycanthropy (real werewolf news stories) that will raise your hair (so to speak).

— Doc Velocity

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.

reply to post by deenuu


even if these fish were alive when they hit, it seems they didn't live for long going by the dead fish in a bucket photo.

Who's to tell that there weren't tornado type winds to pick these up and carry them to someplace else, just because no one saw such an event occuring doesn't prove that there wasn't.

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.

According to the article this also happened on two other ocassions in 2004 and 1974.
I believe that I arrived right after a sky fall in central FL. I was driving to work and at on a spot on the road, not more that a 50 ft square were live fish. Since it was close to the road I decided it must have been spilled from a truck, but the size of the fish were not big enough to be commercial or small enough for a pet store or bait shop. It really puzzled me and still does. I wish I could be sure of the origin of the fish.
I have also read of stuff falling from the sky. Sometimes is is related to poltergist activity. Perhaps a disgruntled or bored dead resident of the nursing home looking for a little fun and excitment.
Even time travel doesn't quite explain why they are all of the same size. Didn't Newton prove that everything falls at the same speed? That would preclude the theory that littler fish fell in a different place.