Alien poop.

Betcha it's something from an airplane toilet.

simsite9: Betcha it's something from an airplane toilet.

THIS.

Then I spotted something on the lawn and it looked like broken glass - I thought it must be the kids.

Who makes their children out of glass, then leaves them out in a hailstorm?

This guy is totally not making this up. We have proof that this happened exactly the way he said it. We totally have more than his word to go on.

/someone f*cked up a batch of Jell-O and decided to take the Daily Fail for a ride
//not like that birdcage liner has a problem with highly improbable stories

Blue is a colour seldom seen in Nature. I suspect that they are indeed a water-gel from an airplane--perhaps some sort of deicing fluid.

Most of these falls of blue or green water are frozen. Algae may play a role. But this stuff is clear, gelatinous and doesn't have any clear sign of cellular or multi-cellular structure, so even for an anomalous fall it is unusual. I wish somebody would do an analysis of some of these falls and settle the issue.

Although airplanes are often mentioned by rationalists, the falls do not necessarily coincide with local flight patterns, so I expect they must fall from high-flying long distance flights.

On the other hand, we can not preclude other explanations. One is that ice-covered algae or bacteria in the upper atmosphere sometimes clump together. Bacteria form the "seed" of rain and snow formation. If enough of these droplets or pellets of ice clump, they might freeze and refreeze until they form a small flying puddle.

Charles Fort collected examples from long before the days of high-flying aircraft, so they can't all be from airplane toilets. Charles Fort died in 1932 (IIRC). There were scarcely any commercial flights then, let alone luxurious airliners with toilets and food and drink service.

Scientists now know the existence of an "aeolian zone" where bacteria and other high-flying flotsam and jetsam, some blown off of mountain ranges and high plateaux, can be found. Some remarkable birds, including geese, can fly as high as the big jet planes (over 30,000 ft).

This is why it would be worthwhile to study some of these anomalous falls. Fort was ahead of the science by decades in his jocular speculations. I suspect there is a lot more to learn. Perhaps the fictional creatures in SF and horror stories, such as the gelatinous atmospheric jellyfish written about by the famous author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, really exist, in which case the upper atmosphere is as strange and unknown as the ocean deeps were a few years ago.

The winds of the upper atmosphere (such as the famous Jet Stream which guides our weather and climate) are extremely fast, and updrafts can carry remarkably heavy loads (just think of tornadoes and hurricanes closer to the ground).

The most beautiful words in the language for a scientist are "further study required". I think there is room for a whole new speciaility if we can determine that these anomalies are natural and not man-made in origin. Some of them may be as big as the flying ponds that Fort imagined and that appear in The Integral Trees by Larry Niven, a SF writer which I admire for his narrative skill and his scientific imagination and accuracy (like many of these, he was employed in the aero-space industry directly or indirectly).

Those are water beads Link (new window)

They make them for watering plants. Just a polymer hydrogel. The guy is making that shiat up, cause they explode with the smallest force. Actually, they even sell them for use in kids guns - a safer version of paintball.

Taunt unhappy fun ball?

His wife looks like she's going to swallow his blue balls.

'The transmission of eggs on birds' feet is well documented and I guess if a bird was caught out in a storm this could be the cause.'

Are you suggesting bird's eggs migrate?.

They are cool looking though

ciberido: CygnusDarius: 'The transmission of eggs on birds' feet is well documented and I guess if a bird was caught out in a storm this could be the cause.'

Are you suggesting bird's eggs migrate?.

It's a simple question of weight ratios!

I guess a swallow could carry its own eggs.