Sky apples stun English motorists
In the make-believe town of Chewandswallow, it rains soup and juice, and sometimes it snows ice cream. But who would have imagined that the world created by Judi Barrett in her bestselling children's book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" would come true one evening in Coventry, England?
On Monday night, it started raining apples.
“I honestly don’t know where the apples could have come from,” Brian Meakins, a retired truck driver told UK’s Daily Mail.
More than 100 apples fell from the sky onto car roofs and windshields of motorists who were traveling through a busy intersection in the English city. The bizarre phenomenon caused traffic congestion, left many wondering what had happened.
A motorist told the Daily Mail that the apples fell out of nowhere. “They were small and green and hit the bonnet hard,” she added. “Everyone had to stop their cars suddenly.”
Bewildered by the incident, Mr. Meakins speculated: “At first I assumed kids must have thrown them because we do get the occasional egg and apple thrown.” “But there’s way too many for that,” he continued.
British media also puzzled over the rain of apples.
Some speculated that a mini-tornado sucked up the apples from an orchard and deposited the fruit over Coventry. Another theory was they the fell from a cargo crate in an passing aircraft.
BBC ‘s Magazine reported that this is not the first time it has precipitated something other than H20. The site said that frogs had fallen from the sky in the past in Llanddewi, Powys as well as in Croydon, south London. The BBC also reported that back in 2000 scores of dead silver sprats dropped from the sky in the coastal resort of Great Yarmouth.
Paul Sieveking, co-editor of the Fortean Times, a magazine devoted to the analysis of strange global phenomena, told BBC that 300 apples came down in 1984 in Accrington, Lancashire.
However, Dr. Lisa Jardine-Wright, a physicist at Cambridge University described the event as unusual but not inexplicable.
“A tornado which has swept through an orchard will be strong enough to 'suck up' small objects like a vacuum [cleaner]. These small objects would then be deposited back to earth as 'rain' when the whirlwind loses its energy," she told BBC.
