Unexplained Rains of Stones, Rocks & Other in Australia

[M-glass]

Stones, fish, human blood, slabs of ice, horse and infant flesh etc. have been recorded as falling from the skies around the world as readers of Charles Hoy Fort will be aware. Fort suggested (many say it was tongue in cheek) that above us lies another world which occasionally sweeps its rubbish down onto us. But surely such fantasies don't occur in laid-back, practical Australia? And if they did, surely no one would take such nonsense seriously, let alone national newspapers and the ABC? Maybe it would surprise some to learn that not only did objects fall before countless witnesses in this country on a number of occasions, but it was covered by serious Aussie media and even made the news as far away as France?

I'm coming late to this topic as it's covered in Cropper and Healy's book apparently. But not everyone has read the book (I haven't) and the subject --beginning with the Guyra Ghost reports --has been of interest to me since long before the Humptydoo incident and may be of interest to others here in AYR-Ghost, Spirits & Orbs. It's a field rich in its implications. I've had a rough search but haven't found it as a previously posted topic. If it's been covered before, my apologies

The Guyra Ghost has never been satisfactorily explained. It was reported extensively at the time. Police were involved and were unable to detect fraud. Links below for you to peruse at your leisure. A brief overview is as follows: In 1921, in an isolated spot outside the small town of Guyra NSW, a family in a small, four room cottage were awakened by violent crashing which shook the dwelling. Rocks seemingly thrown from the outside blackness seemed to be focused on the room of a twelve year old girl, Minnie Bowden, and in following nights and days during which the assaults continued, rocks and stones seemed to follow her through the house, penetrating walls and ceiling in addition to noisy poundings within the walls of the cottage. Armed locals surrounded the dwelling and were reinforced by police and detectives from as far away as Sydney, but no suspects were seen or apprehended. The girl Minnie's half sister had died some time prior to these events. A spiritualist attended the house and persuaded Minnie to try to make contact with her dead sister. According to reports at the time and since, Minnie was a devout child and was reluctant. Finally she agreed and claimed her sister had told her that she was happy in the afterlife and would look over and protect the family

For a brief time, the assaults on the cottage and its occupants ceased, only to recommence. It was reported that those outside the house believed the endless din and assaults were occurring within the dwelling, while to those inside the dwelling it seemed the assaults were occurring outside. Locals suspected ghosts were responsible and police were under pressure to resolve the situation. At around that point, Minnie was sent to live with her grandmother in Glen Innes, approx. 60 klms away. Once Minnie had departed Guyra, that town rejoiced in resultant peace and quiet. It was now Glen Innes' turn. Minnie's grandmother's house was shaken to its foundations and as in Guyra, rocks pelted the house. Police witnessed the assaults but were unable to see any culprits. Within a month, Minnie was returned to Guyra which seemed to do the trick because after her return the violent activities dwindled away and finally ceased

In due time, Minnie married and lived in Armidale NSW. Her life was uneventful and she was killed by a car in 1989, when she would have been close to 80 years of age. An interesting aside is that five days before the assaults on Minnie's family's house in Guyra commenced, an 87 year old Guyra woman by the name of Mrs Doran disappeared and searches were unsuccessful. The last sighting of Mrs Doran was as she was walking through her field holding a potato in each hand. She was seen to top a ridge, after which she vanished. Some suspected this incident somehow triggered the assaults on Minnie Bowden's cottage. Science explains the Guyra event as 'typical poltergeist activity' with the focus on the adolescent Minnie (although unable to explain the falls of blood, flesh, ice, stones etc. around the world, science chose to ignore them in the main)

Further reading (including photographs etc.) is copious on Google. Here are some links:

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=guyr ... 8&dpr=1.25

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=guyr ... 93&bih=498

A lengthy account: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/11/ ... ing-ghost/

[M-glass]

The Guyra stone falls are not the only well-reported such incidents in Australia. In the 1940s and 1950s there were at least four other regions to suffer the activity which remains unexplained: Boddington in 1946, Mayanup in 1955, Pumphrey's bridge in 1957 and Borden 1962. The stone-falls ranged from the size of a pebble to boulders of approx. 16 kgs. The objects were often warm to the touch and were seen falling through tightly-stretched canvas tents and ceilings/roofs, defying the laws of physics. Numerous witnesses, police, journalists and locals plus sight-seers saw the falls both day and night. Despite that armed locals and police surrounded the afflicted dwellings, no suspects were ever seen. All the above named locations were in south-west Western Australia

For those interested in the phenomena, links below

http://www.wanowandthen.com/mysteries.html (Mayanup)

https://www.wheatbeltnrm.org.au/sites/d ... %20web.pdf (Pumphrey's Bridge. Very interesting indigenous site. Scroll down for the story of the stone falls and some of the principals involved, plus photographs)

https://fieldnotesandfootnotes.wordpres ... in-the-sw/ (article about the 4 different sites affected)

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/200 ... 213000.htm (ABC)

http://spiritstones.com.au/spiritstones ... ations.pdf (sceptics and scientists' explanations)

[M-glass]

Charles Hoy Fort was born in August of 1874 in Albany N.Y. and died in May of 1932. At first he wanted to be a naturalist. But he became a newspaper reporter who ended up collecting tens of thousands of clippings and notes of unusual stories (He eventually claimed about 60,000 notes). He decided to write a book about these unusual stories. His first book was, "The Book of the Damned". By damned, he meant things that people (especially scientists) didn’t want to discuss

One of the things that Fort chronicles is the huge number of stories relating to unusual things that have fallen from the sky.

The following things have been seen to have fallen from the sky or were found on the ground;

black rain
red rain
blue hailstones
two pound hailstones
a hailstone the size of an elephant
pink snow
larvae in a snowstorm
mud
thousands of tons of butter (or a butter like substance)
orange flavored hailstones
huge snowflakes (15 inches across, and 8 inches thick)
ice
silk
seeds
periwinkles
charcoal
coal
a beef-like substance
organic matter
grain
flesh
salt,
fish (some alive, some dry and dead)
small frogs (some white, some alive, but no tadpoles or large frogs)
snails
snakes
lizards
eels
mussels
huge ants
jellyfish
a manna-like substance (edible)
a combustible substance
blocks of limestone
black pebbles
hail (with living frogs inside!)
hundreds of dead birds
countless spiders
stones (in front of crowds of people)
nails
coins
oyster shells
fire or fireballs
and even blood.

The usual explanation for these phenomena is that some whirlwind picked up material from somewhere and deposited it somewhere else. The problem with this explanation, as Fort points out, is that the falls are of one type. There is segregation. If a whirlwind was to descend on a pond it would surely pick up other material as well and wouldn't the whirlwind kill any living thing? Also, Fort could find no instance in which someone’s pond got sucked up by a whirlwind. Some fish falls included deep-sea fishes. Red rains in Sicily were said have been caused by red sand picked up in the Sahara but Saharan sands are white. Also there is often a repeat occurrence of a fall. For example frogs fell in a small area in England and at a later date frogs fell again in the same place. This, according to Fort, eliminates the whirlwind hypothesis.

Many earthquakes have been preceded by loud noises, fish falls and strange aerial phenomenon (UFO's?). Water fell in a crowded room. A sea monster with a head like that of a horse was seen. Some strange (apparent hybrid) creatures have been seen. I think Fort suggests that they were teleported from elsewhere.

Fort also has numerous UFO stories and stories of strange objects seen in the sky (in one case what seemed like an enormous serpent), sheep kills (blood sucked out, no flesh eaten, torn apart), attacks by werewolf-like monsters (that mostly attack women), an apparent teleportation of a person and disappearances of people

Fort rejected the dogma of both religion and science. He said, "It is probable that all religions were founded upon ancient jokes and hoaxes". He also implied that scientists belonged to a cult.

Fort also suggested that what seemed like natural disasters or mysterious disappearances of people (e.g. Marie Celeste) and also spontaneous human combustion, may actually have been acts of war carried out by an external force. He also thought we were "fished for".

Fort makes a connection between the closest approaches of Mars and increased UFO activity. Luminous objects have been seen, on or near, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and the Sun

Lowell, Tesla and Marconi thought Martians were attempting to communicate with us.
He suggests psychic phenomenon is associated with beings from outer space.

Fort

“Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and people believed properly.”

Fort was far ahead of his time. In the 1920's he was speculating about competing external intelligences that were/are controlling the "evolution" of mankind.

He was very interested in stories of things that fell from the sky. He came up with so much evidence that it's hard to refute. Things still fall from the sky and from what I have read, fell thousands of years ago in ancient Greece. In the papers, I’ve read recently of fish falling from the sky in Austrailia, and of chunks of ice falling from the sky from some where in Spain. Many things Fort mentions still happen. We have Chupacabra recently. Strange lights are seen in the sky before earthquakes. Horse headed creatures are seen in lakes all over the world.

Source: http://www.mrowen.com/conspiracy/fort.pdf

[M-glass]

Charles Fort was the first individual to gather and make a systematic study of many unusual physical phenomena. He studied UFOs long before the modern UFO era, which began in 1947. He called attention to many unusual phenomena and the extent of their occurrence. Among many topics now studied as "Fortean phenomena" are falls of frogs, stones, blood, or ice from the sky, mysterious fires, stigmata, invisible assassins, UFOs, poltergeists, ancient technologies, levitation, teleportation, monsters, fireballs, meteors, and ancient artifacts. Until Fort began to write, no one realized how many strange events were occurring and how weak "scientific" explanations of them were. In the years since, many of the mysteries he addressed have been examined and brought into the body of scientific knowledge. Many remain unexplained, however, and new ones are continually being added to the list.

source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/en ... -1874-1932


FREE FULL READ OF CHARLES HOY FORT'S BOOK OF THE DAMNED FROM ARCHIVE ORG

https://archive.org/stream/bookofdamned ... h_djvu.txt

[Yowie bait]

Charles Fort was the first individual to gather and make a systematic study of many unusual physical phenomena. He studied UFOs long before the modern UFO era, which began in 1947. He called attention to many unusual phenomena and the extent of their occurrence. Among many topics now studied as "Fortean phenomena" are falls of frogs, stones, blood, or ice from the sky, mysterious fires, stigmata, invisible assassins, UFOs, poltergeists, ancient technologies, levitation, teleportation, monsters, fireballs, meteors, and ancient artifacts. Until Fort began to write, no one realized how many strange events were occurring and how weak "scientific" explanations of them were. In the years since, many of the mysteries he addressed have been examined and brought into the body of scientific knowledge. Many remain unexplained, however, and new ones are continually being added to the list.

source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/en ... -1874-1932


FREE FULL READ OF CHARLES HOY FORT'S BOOK OF THE DAMNED FROM ARCHIVE ORG

https://archive.org/stream/bookofdamned ... h_djvu.txt

That's quite a list of falling things M-glass! The Australian Poltergeist covers a lot of Aussie Polt activity.. Ive still not finished it so dont know their conclusions but if true there are some weird stuff out there!!

Im glad i have never experienced anything like that and hope i never will!

[Searcher]

M-glass wrote:

Charles Fort was the first individual to gather and make a systematic study of many unusual physical phenomena. He studied UFOs long before the modern UFO era, which began in 1947. He called attention to many unusual phenomena and the extent of their occurrence. Among many topics now studied as "Fortean phenomena" are falls of frogs, stones, blood, or ice from the sky, mysterious fires, stigmata, invisible assassins, UFOs, poltergeists, ancient technologies, levitation, teleportation, monsters, fireballs, meteors, and ancient artifacts. Until Fort began to write, no one realized how many strange events were occurring and how weak "scientific" explanations of them were. In the years since, many of the mysteries he addressed have been examined and brought into the body of scientific knowledge. Many remain unexplained, however, and new ones are continually being added to the list.

The word 'fortean' is a legacy to Charkes Fort's pioneering work in documenting mysterious and unexplained events.

Fortean | ˈfɔːtɪən |
adjective
relating to or denoting paranormal phenomena: Fortean phenomena like spontaneous combustion.
DERIVATIVES
Forteana plural noun
ORIGIN
1970s: from the name of Charles H. Fort (1874–1932), American student of paranormal phenomena.