Hiru News reported on 1 May that a rain of fish had taken place around a house in the Parakum area of Mahiyanganaya. Mahiyanganaya is a town situated close to the Mahaweli River in Badulla District, Uva Province of Sri Lanka.
The brief article captured the strangest elements of the story: that there had been no rain in the area at the time the fish fell and that the fall appeared to be localised to a single house. This is a developing story and I hope to dig a little deeper over the next week.
The video above in Sinhala is translated below:
First Person: My daughter’s son’s home is bit far from mine. My daughter had called me and said that, “Mom, suddenly here fish have dropped from the sky and they are wiggling. Please come soon”.
So, I have asked, “Son, in my area we are not having rain. Is it raining?”.
My home is near around the boo tree. After that my daughter said that, “No. It suddenly happened. I was teaching my daughter and suddenly fish dropped from the sky. I called my neighbor brother and told him about this. After that my baby took a water basket and put them in to water because they are wiggling and alive”.
Reporter: To a water basket? Was he able to save them?
First Person: No. We weren’t able to save any of them. Its sunny time. They are all dead.
Reporter: This are not tank fish, right?
First Person: No not tank fish. Don’t know where they came from. Don’t know whether they are from the sea but not from the tank. There are a lot of tanks around here. But we didn’t saw any fish like this.
Second Person: I am around 50 years old. We have seen this kind of situation in raining season. With rain. This kind of situation happened without raining is unbelievable.
Third Person: Some time ago, fish falling from the sky have been reported in another country. We saw it on the television. But we didn’t see it with our own eyes. This is the first time we saw fish falling.
Fourth Person – One of my uncle came and told me that “Daughter, fish falling from the sky happened in Chami uncle’s home.” After that we came here and saw fish dropped around.” We didn’t think this was true. We also can’t believe that fish are falling from the sky like this.
Fifth Person – When this was happened, I was teaching my daughter. Suddenly my babies started shouting saying, “Mom fish falling from the sky”. Then I was looked around and saw there was fish dropped in front of my house and they were wiggling like just dragged out from the water.
The translation suggests that witnesses observed the fish falling, but not any of the people interviewed by the actually saw the fall. Frustrating!
There appears to also be a longer, HQ video on Facebook which shows two fish being retrieved from the roof of the house. I plan to have this translated shortly.
This is a really odd case. The Cropster plans to try and reach out to local Sri Lankan authorities to find out more.
Stay tuned, Fortean fans.
