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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 |
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Frog Fall
June 16, 1937. Frackville, Pennsylvania.
"Astonished householders of this little mining town, ten miles north of Pottsville, went out with brooms and swept bullfrogs off their open porches after a thunderstorm today.
"The tiny frogs sounded like the thudding of hailstones as they dropped by hundreds on tin roofs.
"Miniature "twisters" accompanying the rain had lifted the frogs several yards into the air, it was suggested, and dropped them over Frackville."
(Anonymous; "Bullfrogs by the Hundred Fall in Pennsylvania Rain," New York Times, June 17, 1937. Cr. M. Piechota.
Comment. The "whirlwind theory" is always trotted out to account for fish, frog, and toad falls. It is not easy to find hundreds of tiny frogs in a marsh and then vacuum them up without also levitating considerable plant debris and other marsh dwellers.