Red Rain

Charles Fort and Blood Showers

Charles Fort, the father of the modern study of strange phenomena, had many views about blood falls which he discussed at length in his writings. In his first book, The Book of the Damned, he wrote the following bizarrely lyrical passage about red rains:

Or that our whole solar system is a living thing: that showers of blood upon this earth are its internal hemorrhages-- Or vast living things in the sky, as there are vast living things in the oceans-- Or some one especial thing: an especial time; an especial place. A thing the size of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's alive in outer space--something the size of Central Park kills it-- It drips.

Fort had other wild possible explanations for blood falls, as well. In his book Lo!, he cites the case of flesh and blood that fell from the sky during a three minute shower onto the farm of J. Hudson in Los Nietos Township, California. Fort considers the notion that a fall of blood and flesh might be the effect of "teleportative seizures." That is, "It may be that a living thing, in California, was, upon the first of August, 1869, shot from point to point, and was torn to pieces, in the passage" (p. 599). Fort says that the substance covered several acres, and that "The conventional explanation is that these substances had been disgorged by flying buzzards. 'The day was perfectly clear, and the sun was shining, and there was no perceptible breeze,' and if anybody saw buzzards, buzzards were not mentioned."

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ŠMark Chorvinsky, 1995