Illustration by Greg Cravens
In our April issue, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Bluff City, I dropped in a few "Weird Moments" from our city's history, and I included this rather unusual event from January 15, 1877:
"Memphians are horrified to discover unusual objects mixed with the rain during a heavy downpour. Umbrellas really aren’t much help against thousands of foot-long garter snakes dropping from the sky, most of them very much alive. Investigating the phenomenon, Scientific American magazine pondered where so many snakes “could exist in such abundance,” and suggested that “they were probably carried aloft by a hurricane and wafted through the atmosphere,” apparently forgetting that Memphis rarely has hurricanes. In fact, never."
Now this is certainly weird, but it is SO weird that — despite the frequent references to Scientific American in any recounting of this story — you have to wonder what really happened. And so, looking through some books in the Lauderdale Library one evening, I came across a February 1985 issue of FATE magazine, which featured a story called "Snakes Fell on Memphis."
"It is clear that the snake shower was at best controversial."
I don't have space to include the entire story here, and apparently it's not available online, but let me spend just a little of your time time discussing the most interesting — and puzzling — points raised by the author of this article, a fellow named Gregory Little, whose connection with Memphis is never explained. And he begins by stating the obvious: "From the few brief Memphis newspaper accounts published immediately after the event, it is clear the snake shower was at best controversial."
Here's why.
Memphis had at least three newspapers in 1877, some daily and some weekly. Little, who took the time to try to find the original accounts of this "miracle," discovered that only one newspaper , the Weekly Public Ledger, wrote about the "snake shower." For such a bizarre event, that in itself is ... bizarre. Over a period of days, other newspapers, here and in other cities, picked up the curious story — mainly by quoting verbatim from the first newspaper — and Little discovered, "That story was the basis for all other reports of the incident.'
And here's something else, and this is important: Not one single person saw these snakes actually fall from the sky.
The newspaper(s) noted that on the afternoon of January 15, 1877, Memphis was hit by an unusually strong and powerful rainstorm, lasting barely 15 minutes. Little reports, "Immediately after the rain stopped, people in a roughly two-block area in South Memphis noted that their yards, sidewalks, gutters, and streets were covered with small, writhing, nonpoisonous 'snakes' crawling in all directions."
They tended to clump together in masses and lightened in color when placed in fresh water.
He put "snakes" in quotes for a reason. These creatures "ranged from a foot to 18 inches long,were brown to black in color, and had black spots and small but distinctive black heads. They tended to clump together in masses, and" — this is important, I think — "lightened in color when placed in fresh water for a day."
Snakes don't do that.
Let's also go back to that rain storm that covered only a two-block area, bounded (according to the account in the Ledger) to Vance, St. Paul, Orleans, and Lauderdale streets. (I do apologize that my family name has been dragged into this). Now, that is a very specific rainstorm, no?
And here's the kicker. Some of the "snakes" were somehow carried to an expert in Washington, D.C., who reported that they were "the diameter of a common knitting needle." This would make for a very thin snake indeed. What's more, he observed that they didn't slither forward, as a normal reptile might, but "would shove the fore part of the body ahead, and draw the balance up in a hoop shape."
In other words, just like a worm. Little quoted from a biologist, who concurred: "They could not have been snakes. No snake moves by drawing his body into a loop and then pushes it forward."
In a follow-up story published a few weeks later, the New York Herald, which had picked up the strange story, speculated, "A heavy gale swept the wormy colony up from some western brake, and after whirling them for many miles, dropped them in Memphis with an accompanying rain shower, much to the disgust of the worms, no doubt."
Not to mention the disgust of the people who found them in their yards!
Scientists have suggested everything from horsehair worms to common leeches.
Whenever this story gets repeated, with various changes to the "facts," various experts offer their opinions about what, exactly, happened. To this day, there is no clear answer, though scientists have suggested everything from "horsehair worms" to common leeches, though leeches rarely reach 18 inches in length and are thicker than a "common knitting needle."
The article in FATE magazine concludes in this rather non-conclusive way: "Although the 'snake shower' was probably a far less wondrous event than it seemed, chances are we'll continue to read about it in books recounting great world mysteries. The story, after all, has been documented in everything from Scientific American to Reader's Digest — impressive credentials for what was, in reality, a most mundane occurrence."
Well, I wouldn't go that far. They might not have been snakes, but finding a two-block area of this city covered with writhing worms is not something I would call "mundane."
