It’s Raining Tadpoles
Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 13th, 2009
“Fortean falls” include classics such as frog falls and fish rains. June 2009 may be remembered on future Fortean calendars for the Japanese tadpole falls.
Dead tadpoles have been found on the ground in Ishikawa Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast since the start of the month, prompting local residents to speculate that they might have fallen from the sky after being sucked up by a waterspout or carried by birds.
On Thursday, June 4th, a 55-year-old man in the city of Nanao, Japan, heard a strange sound of something falling on a parking lot at a civic center at around 4:30 p.m. and found about 100 dead tadpoles on the windshields of cars and over an area of around 10 square meters.
On Saturday, June 6th, 20 to 30 dead tadpoles were also discovered in the city of Hakusan in the prefecture, according to local officials.
Takeshi Kakiuchi, 62, a member of the Nanao Municipal Assembly, found six tadpoles on his car and on the ground around his house, located 4 kilometers from the center’s parking lot, Monday morning, June 7th.
Yukio Oumi, 78, found small dead fish around his house in Nakanotomachi., on Tuesday evening, June 8th. He reported he found 13 fish, apparently crucian carp each 3 centimeters long, on the back of his truck and the ground.
The Kanazawa Local Meteorological Observatory said there had been no reports of strong winds so far and experts and observatory officials are not sure how the tadpoles and fish were transported to the area. A researcher at the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology in Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, said, ‘‘Crows eat tadpoles but if these were vomited (by the birds), a wider area should have been covered.’’
Images of the actual tadpoles have been shown on Japanese television.
Sources: Japan Today, Japan Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Thanks to our Fortean friends at The Anomalist for keeping tabs on these tads.
Ah, my favorite Fortean event! Mysterious Falls/Rains! Maybe someday they’ll actually figure this stuff out. I consider the old idea of the waterspout/whirlwind is tired and unlikely. But…who knows. Fascinating, at any rate.
My main criticism of the usual explanation of a waterspout or similar weather phenomenon is that if that was the case, won’t we see a mixing of species in the falls?
Typically, these Fortean falls are of only one or two species, not a true sampling of a portion of a pond or lake that would seem to be the case if it was scooped up by a twister/waterspout.
Loren- exactly. For that matter, why don’t we see plantlife from the body of water? And often, as I recall the accounts, the species will turn out to be not even remotely local. It was these events that led Fort to speculate on the existence of a natural ‘force’ of teleportation. Of course he wasn’t proposing it as the answer, just that it made at least as much sense as the waterspout explanation.