Fish fall out of sky over remote Australian desert town

Last Thursday and Friday the 650 residents of remote Australian desert town Lajamanu were bombarded by hundreds of white fish which fell out of the sky. Spangled perch, to be precise.

Ms Christine Balmer’s family thought she was going mad when she told them what was happening.

‘I haven’t lost my marbles,’ she said. ‘Hundreds and hundreds of fish landed in the town. Locals were picking them up off the ground everywhere.

‘These fish were alive when they hit the ground,’ she added. ‘Thank God it didn’t rain crocodiles.’

The perch are common throughout northern Australia. That’s all very well, but the nearest river is 326 miles away from Lajamanu. It seems there is a natural explanation, albeit utterly unlikely. Meteorologists say conditions were perfect for a tornado in the region which could have sucked the fish up to 50,000-ft into the air from lakes hundreds of miles away.

‘Once they get up into the weather system they are pretty much frozen and after some time they are released,’ said Mark Kersemakers of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

It’s not the first time local people have reported strange things.

Les Dillon, 48, said: ‘In the early 1980s I was at the Alice Springs Tavern Hotel and when I walked out the door I saw all those little fish, fallen out of the sky.

‘Yes, I had a couple of beers, six, so none of my mates believed me. I’ve rung heaps of people to let them know I wasn’t drunk back then. It had really happened.’

‘I was really excited to see it had happened again, I rang heaps of people to let them know I had not been drunk back then, it had really happened.’


/Metro.co.uk/