I saw a dead corpse in a coffin lie in the close unburied – and a watch is constantly kept there, night and day, to keep the people in – the plague making us cruel as dogs one to another. Samuel Pepys, diary 4th September 1665
In the height of it … bold people there were to go in sport to one another’s burials. And in spite to well people, would breathe in the faces … of well people going by. Samuel Pepys, diary 12th February 1666
Even so quickly may one catch the plague? William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night I v 285, Olivia
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies. William Shakespeare, Othello I i 70, Iago
I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people. They go commonly together. Robert Burton
One was never married, and that’s his hell:
another is, and that’s his plague. Robert Burton
The deadliest plague of all occurred during the Middle Ages – the Black Death. The Bubonic Plague devastated Europe in the 1340s killing between 25 and 50,000,000 people ... By the year 1400 it’s thought the death toll may have reached 100,000,000 people worldwide, reducing the population of Europe by as much as 50% ... The Spanish Flu was more deadly than the Great War. Seven Signs of the Apocalypse, History 2009
Bubonic Plague – some estimate the disease killed as many as two hundred million people. Its victims cough up blood and writhe in agony. Their skin bubbles and bursts. Vampire Forensics, National Geographic 2010
Besides frogs, Charles Fort recorded falls of fish, grain, cinders, ants, worms, and most remarkable of all a turtle encased in ice and even an alligator. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World, ITV 1980
This is fascinating. And one’s first guess is that a whirlwind must have taken them up before dropping them in front of the astonished eye witnesses. I’m sure this accounts for some falls of fish and frogs. But there are problems with the Whirlwind Theory. Why is it always one kind of fish? Why are there no weeds or other objects? Why aren’t deep-water fish sometimes involved? Moreover, what must have come down must have gone up. Why are there no reports of the lift-off? ibid.
I’ve always suspected that tornadoes or water spouts may be the causes of such weird falls. For example, when a tornado passed through ... India in March 1875 a cow was found in the branches of a tree about thirty feet from the ground. After a storm in America in 1943 dozens of chickens were found sitting in a row entirely stripped of their feathers. But my favourite comes from 1896 at St Louis a whirlwind lifted a cow into the air. It was carried along for a hundred yards before floating back to earth so gently that the coachman’s hat stayed firmly on his head. And in more recent times tornadoes and whirlwinds have continued to play extraordinary tricks. Arthur C Clarke
Thornton Road, Birmingham: It’s not the quiet suburban neighbourhood it seems. Five of these houses are under siege. Night after night rocks rain down on them. The bizarre bombardment has lasted six years ... The stones seem to come from nowhere ... The stake-out goes on in Thornton Road night after night. Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers, ITV 1985
Quite a hefty stone ... The gardens of these houses in this area all have these pebbles in them. The interesting thing about this and all the others that we’ve had is that every one appears to be washed and scrubbed. None of them appears to contain any dust at all. Chief Inspector Len Turley, Birmingham rozzer
Well I was in this conservatory picking out seeds and I heard this whooshing sound which was on the glass above me ... I looked up and found the whole of the glass above me covered in, we found out afterwards, mustard and crest seed. This went on it seemed to me all day long at intervals of half an hour, an hour ... The following day down came a shower of peas and maize, haricot beans ... And we couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Roland Moody, Southampton, televised interview
The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus. Outbreak 1995 starring Dustin Hoffman & Morgan Freeman & Rene Russo & Cuba Gooding junior & Patrick Dempsey & Donald Sutherland & Kevin Spacey & Zakes Mokae & Malick Bowens & Susan Lee Hoffman & Benito Martinez et al, director Wolfgang Petersen, Dr Joshua Lederberg caption
This strange disease – thirty men dead yesterday, eighteen the day before. We need supplies. ibid. doctor
This is a punishment. ibid. tribal bloke to Hoffman
You have to love its simplicity. ibid. Hoffman
This morbid desire to face the end of the world. ibid. Freeman
This thing kills everything in its path. ibid. Hoffman
We are the last line of offence. ibid. Freeman
Yes, they want their weapon. ibid. Hoffman
I saw some four or five fish under the Christmas tree here ... I thought they came from the rainbow. Sarath, Colombo, Sri Lanka, televised interview
We were coming down the second fairway when she was about to play a second shot from just over there. And er just before she hit it a fish fell down on the ground in front of us. And then we looked up in the sky and suddenly hundreds of fishes falling in an area of about a hundred yards. They were alive ... There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Ian Patey, Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire, televised interview
I went through the back of the house and er as I got near the garage I heard something fall on the tin roof of the garage, and simultaneously something hit me on my head and on my shoulders, and I looked down and there were fish! Anthony Roy junior, Marksville Louisiana, televised interview
The yard was absolutely covered with fish. Sheriff Potch Didier, Marksville, Louisiana, televised interview
I was walking along with my two children going home just where these houses are now and I felt a wind blowing up – it was quite strong blowing up the road ... and the wind got so strong that I was afraid of it blowing the children into the road. I pushed them on the floor and lay on top of them ... As I looked at the pond the water was going out of the pond and going upwards. It was spiralling up into the air. Ernie Singleton, Merseyside
I was awakened by this strange noise, and then I heard it on top of the roof. Thudding, a frightening thudding noise ... All these apples was coming down. As far as I can see they were coming straight from the sky ... It wasn’t windy that night or rainy. Adrienne Haythornwhite, Accrington, Lancashire
Apples! There seemed to be thousands of them. They were in her garden, but only in her garden. There were Bramleys, there were Coxes, some were whole, some were embedded. Joan Corke, neighbour
And a shower of broad beans came through ... They came with such force. Mrs Monica Stockley, Southampton, Hampshire, televised interview
It would be about quarter past six in the evening. A summer’s evening ... And the sky suddenly darkened. Very very dark indeed. Like a thunderstorm. And then the frogs came. Millions of them. Raining out of the sky. Millions upon millions of frogs about a half-inch long. They fell all over us ... It rained frogs for at least an hour and a quarter. Joe Alpin, Alton Towers, Staffordshire, televised interview
It was a horrible day. A typical summer’s day actually in Britain. It was raining all the time. But this was a very heavy shower. We’d actually been and bought my little daughter a little red umbrella. We heard something thudding against the umbrella. And when we looked to our amazement it was a shower of frogs. And they still were coming from the skies. Hundreds of them. Our umbrella was covered. All our shoulders were covered. And as we looked up we could see them coming down like snowflakes. And all at once when we looked down, the ground was absolutely covered in them. Hundreds of them. An area of about fifty square yards I should think. Sylvia Mowday, Sutton Coldfield, June 12th 1954 televised interview
We saw this cloud about the size of a billiard table to us. It came lower and lower ... There was Fish coming down about the size of sticklebacks. Whitebait. Inch to three inches long. Ron Newton, televised interview
A very stormy night ... Fish on the pathway ... More on the ground, two on the roof of the lean-to and various fish spread about the garden. Derek Gosling, Sheerwater, Surrey, televised interview
When we reached this point there was a click, and I thought I had lost a button in my coat. Looking around we found we were in the middle of a shower of hazelnuts coming from the sky. And they were dropping on the cars, falling in the gutter ... We cracked some of them open. They were quite fresh and sweet and nice. Mr Alfred Wilson Osbourne, Bristol, televised interview
Phenomenon In Ross-Shire – A curious phenomena occurred at the farm of Balvullich, on the estate of Ord, occupied by Mr Moffat, on the evening of Monday last. Immediately after one of the loudest peals of thunder ever heard there, a large and irregular shaped mass of ice, reckoned to be nearly twenty feet in circumference, and of proportionate thickness, fell near the farm house. It had a beautiful crystalline appearance, being nearly all transparent. Scotsman newspaper report 1847