Thursday, May 26, 2011

Rain of Fish

Legend has it that when a Spanish Catholic missionary named Father Jose Manuel Subirana visited Honduras about a hundred and fifty years ago, he saw so many poor and starving people that he prayed for 3 days and 3 nights asking God to provide them with free food. Suddenly, a miracle happened… it rained fish from the sky. And as crazy as it sounds, the rain of fish STILL happens to this day. It starts just like any storm, but when the rains end, thousands of living fish are flopping on the ground, waiting for villagers to scoop them up and eat them. A scientific explanation is still up in the air.

This strange phenomenon is called Festival de la Lluvia de Peces, or Festival of the Rain of Fishes, and it happens sometime between May and July in the city of Yoro, Honduras. While raining animals has been often observed throughout history , and all over the world, it is exceptionally rare to have it occur in the same place twice. Researchers also determined that the fish were all of the same fresh water species, which is a known species, but that does not inhabit any waters nearby the area.

1 comment:

  1. We visited the area in 2007 and missed the occurance by 4 days. We arrived on the 29th of June and the locals were explaining to us it had happened on the 25th.

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