CAROL VORDERMAN: What caused the two-hour bombardment of apples
from the sky which terrified the occupants at this house?
50 miles from the coast, how did sea fish come
to fall on this man's garden?
Can science identify the mystery goo
which appeared from out of the blue on a Washington farm?
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke,
author of "2001" and inventor of the communications satellite.
Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles
of this and other worlds.
Here in Sri Lanka, missiles regularly rain down on us.
They bring injury, and even death,
to anyone unfortunate enough to find
themselves in the firing line.
They seem to come from out of the blue.
But a closer look, up into the palm trees, reveals the truth.
Though I'm always on the lookout for killer coconuts--
one of them almost brained a member of my film crew
a few years ago-- I'm far more interested
in stranger aerial bombardments-- for example,
showers of fish, rains of frogs, and the falls of weird jelly.
Where do they come from?
Well, it's a question I've tried to answer before.
Just before she hit it, a fish fell down
on the ground in front of us.
And then we looked up in the sky,
and suddenly there were hundreds of fishes falling
in an area of about 100 yards.
I saw the fish, saw the fish fall out of the sky.
And I kept driving.
I was very amazed.
And when I got here, at this location here,
the yard was just absolutely covered with fish.
Looking around, we found that we
were in the middle of a shower of hazelnuts
coming from the sky.
They were dropping on the cars, falling in the gutter.
And I should think there would be as many
as-- we saw about 350 of them.
It sounded like the ceiling all fell in on my house.
We looked up at the ceiling and we
saw insulation and ice falling down on the floor,
which flew all over us.
We had no idea where it came from,
but it was sure in a hurry to get here.
That first investigation reached
no definite conclusions.
So I make no apology for returning
to this intriguing subject.
More than half a century after the most extraordinary
experience of his life, Ron Newton
is still haunted by the day thousands of fish
fell on him and his girlfriend.
RON NEWTON: I was about 15-year-old,
and my girl, Ivy Crouch, she was 16.
And as we were walking down the [INAUDIBLE],
we saw this cloud, about the size of a billiard table to us.
It came lower and lower.
We run under a big old tree.
And by the tree was a cottage.
Now, we hadn't been under the tree
long when there was a rattling noise up in the branches.
And there was fish coming down, about the size of sticklebacks,
white bait, inch to three inches long-- like they were coming
down on the cottage roof and sliding down the roof,
falling off onto the path.
Well, Ivy was crying about it because the poor little fish
were flipping about, helpless.
And we found an old shoebox.
CAROL VORDERMAN: But there were too many fish for the shoebox.
The rescue attempt overwhelmed them.
Suddenly, a romantic walk had turned into something sinister.
Amidst the flopping fish, Ron and Ivy struggled to make sense
of what was happening to them.
There were so many thousands of fish on the ground, all round,
but we did you wouldn't notice.
So we gave it up.
And we were scared about it.
We didn't know quite what was going to happen.
CAROL VORDERMAN: In the heart of the south of England,
Derek Gosling's home in Surrey stands
in a county far from the sea.
His garden is his pride and joy, but one morning,
he was startled to discover a mystifying crop.
DEREK GOSLING: It had been a very stormy night,
and I came out the following morning to see
what damage had been done.
And I noticed fish on the pathway,
which was rather puzzling.
And I looked round, and I saw more on the ground and two
on the roof of the lean-to and various fish spread
about the garden-- two in the rose bushes, just
hanging in the rose bushes, and more scattered
on the lawn under the bushes.
And I couldn't make out where they had come from.
I looked around to the other gardens
to see if they had done anything--
because I thought someone was having a joke at the time.
And I couldn't see anyone.
And it was rather puzzling.
So I called the wife, and she come out and had a look.
And she was as puzzled as I was.
I must say that they were smelling at that time,
so they must have been out of the water
for a few hours at least.
And there's no major rivers from the southwest.
I can only assume that they come from the sea.
I've always suspected that tornadoes
or water spouts may be the main causes of such weird falls.
For example, when a tornado passed through the Brahmaputra
district of India in March 1875, a cow
was found in the branches of a tree,
about 30 feet from the ground.
After a storm in America in 1943, dozens of chickens
were found sitting in a row entirely
stripped of their feathers.
But my favorite comes from 1896.
At St. Louis, a whirlwind lifted a carriage into the air.
It was carried along for 100 yards before floating back
to Earth, so gently that the coachman's
hat stayed firmly on his head.
And in more recent times, tornadoes and whirlwinds
have continued to play extraordinary tricks.
CAROL VORDERMAN: America's west-- here, where Texas joins
Oklahoma, and the wide open spaces seem to run on forever,
they call it Tornado Alley.
More tornadoes, like this one in 1957,
are born here than anywhere else on Earth.
And the tricks they play can be devastating,
ripping whole communities from their roots.
Sometimes, they sweep everyone in their path high
into the tempestuous sky.
Today, Kenneth Harroll is returning to his childhood home
as a grown man, a stark contrast to the strange and dangerous
journey he once made here as a baby.
40 years on, his older sister, Jean Strey,
waits for him, full of memories.
JEAN STREY: Hello, love.
Hello, Jean.
How you doing?
It's been a long time.
It's been a long, long time.
Kenny, this is where it took place.
So this is it, huh?
This is it.
47 years ago.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Kenneth was the baby of the family.
He and his sisters had enjoyed a quiet day at home.
JEAN STREY: It was in the afternoon, about 6:00 or 630.
And Mother was cooking dinner on this great big woods burning
stove.
And all of a sudden, there was a loud roar.
And about that time, I was standing Mother,
and I saw the grove of trees and the tornado,
and the trees just being picked up like toothpicks
and laid down.
Now, the tornado was about half a mile to the horizon.
Mother then got us all four of us children
into where the bed area was, because we lived in one room,
put us on the mattress-- me, my sister, my other sister.
And then put Kenny on my tummy, tucked
the covers in underneath us.
And by the time the tornado had hit the house,
we were losing our oxygen. And our mother
was standing over us.
And I said, Mother, quit moving the bed.
She said, honey, I'm not moving the bed.
CAROL VORDERMAN: At that moment, the tornado struck.
The whole family was lifted into the sky.
And when I came to, I was underneath these tree branches.
And the girls I saw over there by the fire kind of
pulled me out.
And I looked and looked and called for Kenny.
I'm sure that I was screaming his name.
Kenny, where are you?
And it was about 100 yards away is where
I found him under the bedstead.
He was like a little mud ball that I'd picked
up from underneath the gate.
He was unconscious, and blood everywhere.
And the mud was in his hair and his eyes and his face.
You could hardly make him out as a baby.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The tornado roared on,
shattering the nearby communities of Glazier,
Canadian, and Higgins.
Back on the ground, seven-year-old Jean
was frantically searching for the rest of her family.
JEAN STREY: The tornado must have
carried us 100 feet in the air.
And the mattress turned over and just let us come
down together like a parachute.
And not being able to find mother was the most
terrifying thing of all.
Early the next morning, they found Mother at the horizon.
She had fell on one of the trees stumps
that was uprooted and broke her back, all of her ribs,
her arms-- a broken up body.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Miraculously, Jean's mother did survive.
But the village itself was virtually blown off the map.
JEAN STREY: Glazier was completely destroyed,
and as was Higgins.
There was nothing there.
It was leveled.
And the only thing that survived was-- it looked like a little 9
by 12 cement jail house.
Such tales don't in themselves solve
the mystery of these peculiar falls,
though they do provide valuable leads.
Proof that whirlwinds are responsible
demands eye witness evidence that fish
can be sucked out of ponds like this one
and blown across the country.
I found reliable reports impossible to obtain until now.
One of the most convincing accounts
of a lift off from a pond comes from a man
in the north of England who was out one day for a walk
with his children.
CAROL VORDERMAN: New houses today fill the space
once occupied by a fish pond.
Every time Ernie singleton walks past,
he relives the moment when he feared all that he loved
would be snatched from him.
ERNIE SINGLETON: I was walking along with my two children,
going home, just where these houses are now.
And I felt a wind blowing up.
It was really quite strong, very blowing up the road.
And I thought, this is funny, this time of the year,
a great wind blowing.
And I walked a bit further.
And it got stronger and stronger.
And it started going a little bit dark.
I thought, what the devil's happening here?
Is it me?
And the kids say, what's the matter, Dad?
And I said, no, nothing.
It's all right.
And then I reached this spot where the houses are.
There was a big pond which had been a clay pit.
And the wind blew up so strong that I was afraid of it blowing
the children into the road.
So I pushed them on the floor and lay on top of them.
And I clung onto the fence with one hand and over the kids
with the other.
And then I looked at the pond.
All the water was blowing out of the pond and going upwards.
It was spiraling up into the air, and it
all going black and dark.
I was terrified.
I could feel it tugging at my clothes,
because I only had summer clothes on, which were loose.
There must have been thousands and thousands
of gallons went up out of the pit,
because it was almost emptied.
And as I got up, there were little bits of things
lying on the road here.
And it was some of the fishes out of the pit.
CAROL VORDERMAN: It wasn't till later that day
that the community discovered where
their pond and its contents had made landfall.
A mile away, the cricket ground was awash with water,
weeds, fish, and frogs.
Ernie Singleton had witnessed the awesome power
of a localized whirlwind.
He had seen the lift off of an entire pond.
ERNIE SINGLETON: Oh, it was the talk of the town.
It was buzzing for about nine days or nine days wonder.
Well, the fish were no god.
They were all dead, of course.
So they were used as manure.
Where falls of fish are concerned,
I'm quite happy with the whirlwind explanation.
But can the same apply to the showers of frogs reported
from all over the world?
I think that for these, there may be a different answer.
CAROL VORDERMAN: No one knows more about frogs
than Dr. Richard Griffiths.
From his university at Canterbury in Kent,
Griffiths travels the world in search of slimy specimens.
He's studied their habits and their habitats.
And he's investigated reports of weird showers
of frogs and toads.
He believes eyewitnesses are seeing a rarely
observed natural phenomenon.
It appears paranormal, but it can be explained by science.
A number of species, particularly the common toad,
which we have in this country, are what
we call explosive breeders.
And they breed very quickly in a very short period of time
en masse.
Very often, warm, damp weather acts like a switch,
and you get what we call a mass metamorphosis of very young
individuals leaving the pond.
And they emerge from their hiding places,
and you can see, again, very large
numbers of tiny little frogs or toads wandering around on land.
So literally, a lot of people might live in an area
where there are many frogs and toads and not see any one day,
but if the weather conditions change, the following day,
there may be very large numbers around.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Frogs live in communities of huge numbers--
up to 15,000.
When rain triggers them, they emerge
from their hiding places, and often seem to have
fallen with the rain drops.
But Dr. Griffiths also has another explanation
for the falling frog phenomenon.
I had an interesting experience when I
was on a field trip in Austria.
We were doing some work around a lake.
And we decided to break for lunch.
And I was sitting under a tree eating
my sandwiches, when literally, a frog fell into my lap.
When I picked it up, I looked at it,
and this turned out to be a European tree frog.
And in this particular area, this species was
actually very, very abundant.
So if you're in that sort of situation,
very often, if you've got them jumping around above you,
they may appear to fall out of the sky.
I think that many of the stories of frogs falling from the sky
can probably be explained by conventional reasons.
In other words, they can probably be explained simply
by the natural breeding migrations of adults moving
into ponds en masse, and possibly young individuals
leaving ponds en masse, rather than
any other curious phenomenon that we don't understand.
Just when I'm satisfied that I have some answers,
one of the immutable laws of my mysterious universe
comes into play.
Solve one mystery, and there's always
another to remind us that we don't have all the answers,
and probably never will.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Seattle, Washington-- in this city
are the laboratories where a farmer from out of town
hopes to find the answer to a problem
which has mystified her.
Dotty Hearn has been troubled ever
since she found tiny globules of goo covering
her farm buildings and land.
She hopes that a small sample she froze
will yield its secrets to the scientists.
Are there any birds that you have
in the area that may have flown over and dropped some feces?
I have birds, but I haven't seen any feces.
And what exactly are we looking at, the liquid?
Or--
No, there's little blobs in there.
They're crystal clear.
Is this one that we're looking at, here with the--
Yes, uh-huh. That's one.
The little white one?
Uh-huh.
To try to determine what this is,
we can look for E. coli, which is
a bacteria that's found in the intestinal tract
of warm animals.
We should have the results in about two days.
OK.
TIM RICKMAN: Thank you very much.
And thank you.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Dotty Hearn knows every acre
and every tree on her farm near the Oregon border.
DOTTY HEARN: I keep a daily log.
I've been doing this for years.
And it's about the life on the farm and anything that happens,
about the weather and so on and so forth.
Well, this is about August 7.
And on this day, it began to rain about 3:00 PM.
And after the rain had stopped, I put the dogs out.
I found a gelatin-like substance on top of the wood box.
It was clear and in chunks.
Sonny, my daughter, went out and scooped
up some into a plastic bag.
Also there was blobs in other places, too.
It was everywhere.
It was on the grass.
It was on the floor of the porch.
It was on the hand railings.
The reason I keep mentioning the wood box
is because it showed up the most there.
It was soft and gelatinous.
It was clear.
There was no color to it or odor.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The blobs cropped up
again on Dotty Hearn's farm several days later.
By now, even more puzzled, she decided to approach
the government for help.
One possible cause was suggested by the Pentagon.
The military and Air Force and Navy
have said that they practice bombing
out at sea 10 to 25 miles out.
They said they blasted a school of jellyfish sky high.
We are about 50 miles from the ocean.
The jellyfish thing sounds a little far fetched.
CAROL VORDERMAN: At the laboratories,
the scientists have spent two days testing the goo.
Dotty Hearn is about to get some answers.
-Hi, Tim. -Hello, Dotty.
What'd you find out?
Well, this is our control plate.
And as you can see, the colonies, the E. coli colonies,
are the shiny green colonies on this plate.
This is our control plate, like I said.
And this is your sample.
As you can see, there aren't any bacteria on this plate at all.
So at this point, we've determined
that it is not associated with birds or bird droppings.
That's the conclusion that we've come to with this test.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The goo has also been
tested under the microscope.
TIM DAVIS: There is debris in there.
It's unrecognizable.
We can't distinguish exactly what it was originally.
I think the freezing may be at fault.
It seems that it's caused decomposition.
As far as identifying it goes, it is not possible with what
we have received.
We would need a better sample.
CAROL VORDERMAN: For now, Dotty's sample
goes into cold storage, but not the problem itself.
She's determined that one day, she will find out just where
the mysterious goo came from.
I've never seen anything like it before in my life.
If somebody else would have told me about this,
I don't think I would have believed them.
I'm as baffled as I could be about it.
I guess the mystery still goes on.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Accrington, in the north of England,
enjoys the reputation of being a down to earth,
industrial Lancashire town.
But one night, the place played host
to the strangest visitation from the heavens.
ADRIENNE HAYTHORNWHITE: It was a very quiet, still night.
I was awakened by this strange noise.
And then I heard it on top of the roof,
thudding-- frightening thudding noise.
So I put me dressing gown on and came
downstairs, opened the front door,
and there was nothing there.
When I went to the back door, all these apples
was coming down.
As far as I could see, they was just
coming straight from the sky.
[MAKING WOOSHING NOISES]
That's all I heard.
[INAUDIBLE] started, the velocity they were coming
at-- [INAUDIBLE] coming from a great height
to gather the momentum they were coming at.
It was bouncing off the shed, all over the place.
And I was just terrified, just watching this for ages.
And it was [INAUDIBLE] I shut the window shut--
and feelings and visions of them going through the pane at me.
They carried on falling, falling, and falling.
This went on for two hours.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The Haythornwhites
were so terrified, they spent the rest
of the night awake and fearful.
When dawn broke, they realized just what
the fusillade of fruit had brought into their lives.
ADRIENNE HAYTHORNWHITE: When we came out in the morning,
I've never seen nothing like it.
There were so many apples in the garden.
I just couldn't understand where they come from.
And there were just a few in the next doors that had bounced.
They were just littered, peppered all over.
Really ankle deep.
I had to wade through them meself to get through them.
They was embedded in the garden--
eight to 10 inches deep.
Well, you realize I've landscaped the garden since.
God, there must be hundreds under there somewhere,
probably rotted away by now.
CAROL VORDERMAN: Across the way, their neighbor
Joan Corke had also been woken up by the avalanche of apples.
JOAN CORKE: I heard this noise.
It was a thud, thud, thud.
And I thought, is somebody digging?
And so I got out of bed and I came to this window.
And I pinpointed it as coming from Adrienne's over there.
And I thought, what on earth is she doing now?
Is she having a party at this time of the night?
Because it was about half past 1:00.
CAROL VORDERMAN: After listening to the barrage for half
an hour, Joan went back to bed.
The next morning, she rushed to investigate.
I had the shock of me life.
Apples?
There seemed to be thousands of them.
They were all in her garden, but only in her garden.
And there were Bramleys.
There were Coxleys.
Some were whole.
Some were embedded.
I've never come across anything like that before.
And it was a bit frightening, you know.
CAROL VORDERMAN: The Haythornwhites
have spend long hours racking their brains
about that strange and terrifying night.
It was long past the apple harvest.
There was no apple tree for miles around.
They're still mystified by the baffling bombardment.
It could have been a wind what brought them.
But it wasn't windy that night, or it wasn't raining.
And there was no air craft recorded
at that particular time in the morning.
So we just couldn't understand where they come from.
I've heard of a lot of things, but seeing
is actually believing.
And I'll never forget it.
There must be an explanation, a logical explanation.
But who knows?