Shower of Worms, the Flying Earthworms

Have you ever walked outside during a wind storm and noticed earthworms flying down from the sky? Or in the aftermath of strong wind found earthworms in the strangest places like on the roof, by the chimney, on poles etc?

The last one I'm sure everyone has seen, but how many people have actually experienced earth worm rain? To put it another way, how many people have ever heard of it before?

I'll put the chills on my body aside, and try to keep the disgust I have for these creatures in check enough for me to write about it. Apparently earthworm rain is not very uncommon, and happens regularly during strong wind.

During winter the earthworm will usually stay deep in the ground in order to survive, but especially during a wet fall they will often lay right under the surface. When leaves then get pushed up into the air by the wind, the earthworms follow, and somewhere up in the sky they will fall off the leaves and thereby cause the earthworm rain.

Massive amounts of earthworms flying through the sky have happened, but luckily it does not occur very often. The idea of getting just one of these things in my hair while enjoying a fresh walk outside is enough for me to stay inside today. Anyway, the theory of earthworm rain was published in 1925 by the Swedish scientist Herved Berlin, after several incidents of heavy "rain" during the years 1922-23 in Sweden. He called the study "The Earthworm Rain Problem, and it's Scientific Solution".

While I'll gladly accept a rainfall or two, or even a couple of real storms during the year I must admit that if I ever end up in this kind of rain, I would probably faint before I knew what hit me. The thought of myself slowly falling towards the ground while masses of red, slimy, crawling earthworms start to build up around my body completely freaks me out.

I never even heard of this phenomenon before, but now I do wonder how those things got up on the roof all those times, I can easily picture an earthworm holding on to a wet, soggy leaf with all its powers, before it finally has to let go after travelling a mile in the air.

The next time I see leaves flying through the sky I'll probably think of them in a different aspect. There are so many weird and interesting things in nature, but earthworm rain must be the number one thing that I would never want to witness!