Raining animals is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals fall from the sky – that happens no matter the sky is clear (no strong winds, tornados or waterspouts) or it was raining. Such occurrences have been reported in many countries all over the globe in human history, in many cultures: from the Roman empire to Asia, both America and Africa… from ancient times to modern days. The phenomenon is present in literature and popular culture, for example the English language has the famous words “it’s raining with cats and dogs”, but similar examples can be found in many languages over the world.
The most common animals fallen from the sky are the frogs and the fishes, but there have been seen rains of toads, snakes and worms.
One hypothesis explain the phenomenon using the strong winds that travel over the water and pick up creatures as fishes and fogs or small other animals like snakes and worms while passing over the land. These winds would carry them several kilometers and drop them when they lose their strength… but this phenomenon has never been scientifically tested or witnessed. French physicist André-Marie Ampère was among the first scientists to take seriously accounts of raining animals – one of the versions of this hypothesis was explained by the physicist to the Society of Natural Science.
