Files From the Edge (6 page)

In the 1820s, the U.S. government was trying to establish a more open line of communication with the Native American population. Scientists and doctors from a number of universities met with Native American medicine men and shamans. The meeting’s purpose was to see if these Native Americans had any “natural cures” or medicine that nineteenth-century doctors could use. In one meeting, when asked if they used anything in particular to help fight infection, a medicine man emptied his medicine pouch on the table and out fell a number of strange stones. The doctors asked what they were and the medicine man replied that they had great power for healing. The doctors asked where he got them and the medicine man replied “they are star stones that fell from the sky.” The doctors began to laugh and ensured the medicine man it was impossible—stones could not possibly fall from the sky. Well, the last laugh is on the doctors: one hundred years later, the so-called “star stones” that were part of many medicine pouches were analyzed and found out to be meteorites, some of them very rare ones.

Flying Rocks

The falling of rocks from the sky that seem to be thrown by an invisible force are frequent happenings in the paranormal world, especially in cases that involve poltergeist activity. In the late seventies I investigated an occurrence where rocks would fall down from the sky on a number of homes in an isolated neighborhood in Monroe, Connecticut.
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Although the case history and investigation were both complex, I will present the basic facts here and focus on the falling of rocks, omitting the bizarre claims of alien contact that surfaced during the investigation. The rocks fell straight down from the sky several days a week and always after eight in the evening. Residents thought an angry spirit had invaded their property, but local police were sure that pranksters were involved. I personally investigated this event and on one occasion, while interviewing a witness in their home when a falling of rocks took place. The stones fell on the roof making extremely loud sounds; I ran outside but didn’t see anything except the roof, now covered with a new layer of rocks. I went back inside and several minutes later, the rocks began falling again, but this time near the home’s entrance. Once again I dashed outside where I saw several new stones ranging in size piled up against the side of the house. It’s interesting to note that there was never any damage to the side of the home or the roof. I picked up one of the larger stones and it was very warm, as if just heated. The larger stones cooled down to a normal ambient temperature within several minutes.

The stones were all quite common granites and rhyolites found in the area, but the interesting thing about them was all of them were rounded and smooth as if they had been in a fast-moving stream for hundreds of years. I checked other homes in the neighborhood and, although they had experienced the rock falling phenomenon on previous dates, on this particular night the home that I was in was the only one affected. The rock falling took place two days a week for several weeks, stopped suddenly, and as of 2009 has never happened again. Despite a very involved investigation in cooperation with the Monroe and Newtown police, no conventional explanation was ever found.

The Litchfield, Connecticut, Poltergeist

On November 19, 2004, I received a call from a young couple who owned a home on a secluded dead-end street in Litchfield, Connecticut. After hearing me discussing the paranormal on a local radio talk show, they called to relate an experience they found both perplexing and terrifying. The couple told me that on numerous occasions, their house was “bombarded” by rocks of all sizes—the stones even entered their home by breaking windows. The frightened couple asked me to come and investigate since they were sure that it was an angry spirit that wanted them out of the house.

I arrived at their home on November 21 during the day and was greeted by the couple who at the time were recently married and in their late twenties. After some brief introductions, I asked to be taken outside to view the property. I walked around the perimeter of the house and noticed hundreds of rocks against the walls of the home and chips and cracks along the siding as if they had struck with considerable force. Just as in the poltergeist cases in Monroe, Connecticut, all the rocks were rounded and smooth as if they had been in running water for a very long time. I asked for a ladder and climbed up to look at the roof where I noticed only fifteen or so stones, several of them appeared to weigh at least 10 pounds. It seemed that most of the attention was focused on the south side of the home. We then went back inside and began the interview; it was two hours in length and the important facts are presented here.

IT ALL STARTED WITH A OUIJA BOARD

The couple had just moved into the house in October 2004; neither of them had ever had a paranormal experience prior to that. The house is seventy years old, and the previous owners (whom I contacted) never saw or felt anything unusual in the twenty-five years they lived there. It was Halloween eve when the new couple finally moved in and they decided to “have some fun” and play with a Ouija board they found in the attic. As they began to ask questions, the couple was surprised when the planchette (pointing device) went “wildly” across the board and spelled the words “GET OUT.” Both were quite scared and blamed the other for fooling around and moving the pointer around the board. The next night, at ten in the evening, they heard loud thumps on the south side of the house and, thinking some kids were throwing rocks, they both ran outside but no one was there. They went back into their home and the thumping started again, this time louder. The husband grabbed a flashlight to go outside, but before he even opened the door the noise stopped. He went outside anyway and walked along the side of the house and found dozens of rocks piled up in a row 2 feet in width and 8 feet in length. He went back inside and all was silent. That same night at two in the morning they heard the same sound, but this time it was coming from the roof. His wife became very frightened and called the police who found nothing and left.
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The house was quiet for about two weeks, then on November 15 at ten in the evening, the rock throwing started again and this time, they were not only smashing up against the wall, but also falling on the roof. Suddenly, a rock flew through the living room window, shattering the glass, and all was quiet. The couple called the police once again and after looking around, the responding officer suggested that someone they knew was having fun with them. The couple found this idea ridiculous and told me that although the officer seemed helpful, they got the feeling he did not believe them. He even asked the couple if they were drinking or smoking dope. They showed him the stone in the living room that came through the window; the officer picked it up and said it felt warm.

There were no more incidents until November 18 when at about ten in the evening, rocks began hitting the south side of their home once again, but every time they would run out to try and catch the culprit, the bombardment would stop. After my investigation and visit on November 21, the rock throwing stopped. I kept in touch with the couple for several weeks and all remained quiet. They were sure that an evil spirit or ghost was contacted when they used the Ouija board so they burned it in the fireplace. This case remains unexplained in my files. There was notable damage to the side of the house and roof so I think a hoax can be ruled out—why would these people damage their new home? This case is one of many in my files in which a paranormal event was triggered after the use of a Ouija board. Is there a connection between the two? Do they open a doorway to another reality?

A Bermuda Triangle in the Sky

Charles Fort thought that there was a “Super Sargasso Sea” in the upper atmosphere that would occasionally interact with our world and draw things up from the ground and the oceans.
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Fort also felt that on the other side of this Super Sargasso Sea was another land composed of unknown forms of matter and home to strange creatures. This was incredible speculation for Fort’s day; he was trying to express the idea of portals opening up from a parallel reality. During his life, Fort collected more than a thousand cases of identifiable and unidentifiable things that fell from the sky. After spending hours going through microfilm in the New York City Public Library, I actually found many of the original stories Fort used in his research and they seemed quite well documented. Believe or not, the
New York Times
(“All the news that’s fit to print”) was one of the only papers that carried these types of stories. Although some of the articles were short and used as fillers, others had a great deal of information indicating something strange did indeed take place.

Falling Out of the Super Sargasso Sea

We’ve all heard the saying “it’s raining cats and dogs,” but as far as we know, house pets never fell down to Earth from the sky. This saying seems to have originated in sixteenth-century England. Dogs and cats were not allowed in homes so when heavy rain fell, animals would jump on the roofs, lined with a considerable amount of straw for insulation. When the straw got wet, it became very slippery and animals would easily lose their footing, thus the saying was born. Fair enough, but when it rains fish, frogs, birds, and toads not normally found in the area, where do they come from? The cases are too frequent to be ignored, and although I have seventy-three cases in my files, only seventeen of them are presented below.

1666, September: Wrotham, Kent, England: Hundreds of fish of all sizes and species were found in a field. There was no rain for two days and no water around the area. The fish were all dead but there was no sign of decay, indicating they had fallen less than twenty-four hours before.

1683, October 24: Charles Fort’s
Book of the Dammed
reports that frogs fell from the sky over Norfolk, England. Many of the frogs were still alive as they invaded the homes of people who lived in the village. It took ten days to get rid of all the frogs; the number of frogs was said to be in the hundreds (sounds like one of the biblical plagues).

1804, September 22:
The London Herald
reported that the town of Toulouse, France, experienced a fall of tiny frogs. The day was nice and sunny but without warning, massive grey clouds filled the sky and there was lightning with no thunder or rain but plenty of wind. After about ten minutes, the skies cleared and the sun once again was seen
—
it was as if the storm never took place. Then, tiny little frogs fell from the sky, totaling more than one hundred; they were all cold and appeared frozen.

1859, October: The magazine
Nature
reported a dense shower of fish 5 inches in length that covered the roofs of many homes in South Wales. The report was investigated by a Dr. Gray of the British Museum who was puzzled by the event.

1860, June 2: The
New York Times
reported that on May 28, 1860, the Port Jervis area of New York experienced a rain of toads. The author of the article, a Dr. Isaiah Deck, said “these experiences are not rare” because he also saw a rain of toads and fish in 1846 in Norfolk, England. The Port Jervis toads were all dead but they were fresh—the mouths were all open and there was no sign of decay.

1877, January 15:
Scientific American
reported small snakes falling from the sky after a violent freak thunderstorm over the town of Sandhaven, Scotland. An investigation team from the British Museum said the small garter snakes were most likely transported by a water spout from France; all the snakes were dead.

1878, July 16: The
New York Times
reported an exceedingly large number of small toads fell from the sky covering the ground during a heavy afternoon shower in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The toads were most numerous in the Vine Street Depot area where they excited and caused wonder among residents there. A Captain Moulton testified that he saw them fall from the sky; the reporter considered his statement “good testimony” and included it in his story.

1881, May 30: From the
Worcester Daily Times
: During a severe thunderstorm at three in the afternoon, there were heavy rains and hail that “tore through the trees.” In the town of St. John’s, thousands of periwinkles fell from the sky; residents picked them up. In the days to follow, locals were still picking them up.

1885, July 26: The
New York Times
: “Where did all the toads come from?” After a heavy shower passed over Troy, Pennsylvania, in Pike County, the town found itself covered with toads. There were so many toads, it was impossible to walk along the streets without crushing them. They were reported to be at least 1 inch in length and they swarmed into the streets, yards, and gardens. People in the area said roads and fields for miles around were swarmed with toads in the same way. By noon, the toads had all disappeared as mysteriously as they had come; no one was able to explain how they came and went.

1896, October 15: The
Philadelphia Times
reported that dozens of dead birds fell from the sky on a clear day over Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1897, July 16: The
New York Times
reported a shower of toads that appeared during a heavy evening rainfall in the village of Leeds, New York. The toads fell in a limited area only about 100 square feet. This area was covered with perfectly formed, still-alive toads. The toads were all of the same size, about an inch or so in length and of a very strange translucent white color.

1922, September 5: The
New York Daily News
reported that the French village of Brignoles experienced a freak tornado and thunderstorm. After the weather cleared, small live toads fell from the sky over a two-day period. The total number of toads was said to be more than three dozen.