The piece of cod that passeth all understanding

Okay, so it’s not cod, but spangled perch doesn’t quite have the same ring about it. What am I babbling on about? Well, the exciting news is that it’s been raining fish over the small settlement of Lajamanu in Australia’s Northern Territory recently despite the fact that it’s 326 miles from the nearest river.

It appears that the fish, some of which are still alive when they hit the deck, were emptied on to the town from the sky during a rainstorm. Mark Kersemakers, the senior forecaster at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, said: “It could have scooped the fish up to 40,000 to 50,000 feet in the air. Once they get up into the system they are pretty much frozen. After some period they are released.”

This isn’t the first time that Lajamanu has been rained on with something other than water. The same phenomenon occurred in 1974 and then again in 2004.

A local man from nearby Jabiru said: "Usually fish are in the water, now they are falling out of the sky. What if anything bigger falls out of the sky next? It could be crocodiles, that would be real scary."

Now the people of Lejamanu just need a storm of chips to finish off the meal followed by a quick shower of beer.