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Kermit Goes Kerplunk!

Orlando, Florida - There have been dozens of stories of frogs falling from the sky during heavy rain, but I think this is a first: Somebody actually catching the ordeal on videotape. On the evening of July 6, Crystal and Rod Vermeer were vacationing here in "sunny" Florida. At their hotel on the property of a prominent resort destination (which will remain nameless), Rod was trying to document their Florida "vacation," a rain-soaked several days spent inside a hotel for their friends back home in Seattle.

The amphibious downpour did not apparently take much time, as evidenced on the tape. "It's hard to say, actually," says Rod. "I was manning the video camera, and I could hear the rain pouring down, and suddenly it seemed like it was really raining hard. Crystal was being funny and making faces, and she turned around and said something about frogs. I thought she was joking, but when I went over and looked, they were everywhere."

Frog Falls are a more common phenomenon than is commonly believed. Often they happen in crowded city areas in such a way as to make hoaxing an unlikely explanation. Throughout the years, people have often experienced falls of "pink" albino frogs, immature tadpoles, and common frogs. How they become airborne is a mystery, and the only vital theory is that hurricane-force winds pull them into the atmosphere only to drop them, alive, some time later. Though this theory is not widely accepted as plausible, none better has been proposed.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride - This Can't Be Good For Tourism!
Click here to see the movie (2.3MB).

In the case of the Orlando Frog Fall (OFF), the frogs were larger than normal. They appear to be a local strain of tree frogs, measuring approximately 1 1/2 inches to three inches long. The size of the frogs brings into question once again how they could have made the journey, how they could have survived the fall, and from where specifically they came. Science may never know. Rod said "a few minutes after the fall, they scattered into the swampy area. It'd been a long day and I didn't feel like handling frogs."

sources

Interview with Rod and Crystal Vermeer October 8, 1999

"Falling Frogs," Strange Facts of the Unknown World, Published in 1978 by Register Press

Video and Photo Courtesy of Rod Vermeer




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