Given the absurdity of some of the things that have happened to the world in 2018, most of us hardly bat an eyelid at the news anymore. Elon Musk is selling flamethrowers? Cool. Donald Trump is trying to forge a friendship with a notorious dictator? Standard. A bunch of people are seriously trying to convince the rest of the world that the Earth is actually flat? Yawn, tell me something I don't know.
But human poop falling from the sky? Now there's a story.
According to a number of accounts from residents of British Columbia, Canada, human faeces has been raining down from the sky on a fairly regular basis since May 9th this year.
The first person to report the strange phenomenon was Susan Allan, who told the news website Castanet that she was stopped in her car at an intersection with her son when she felt something land on her through the sunroof.
"It stunk, it was gross, it felt dirty and right away you could smell poop," she said. "I started crying (and) I’m like: ‘I'm covered in poo. It was just falling from the sky. You could feel the drops hitting you. When I looked up there was nothing above but a plane flying."
Three days later, a man from the same town discovered that his car had been pelted with a "poo-like matter".
Then, just last week, another person reported something particularly gross that happened to them while they were sitting outside on their deck in Yellowknife - more than 3000 kilometers away from the incident that Allan reported.
Linda Smith, who was outside her home with her family, described the moment that she was hit by a foul-smelling substance.
"All of a sudden — swoosh - we got wet," she said. "We looked out there to see if somebody threw something at us, but there was nothing. It just came from out of the air."
And it was gross.
"It was like somebody's septic tank burst," said Smith, who felt sick from the stench. "It was really bad."
But what is causing this disgusting thing to happen? And why does it only seem to be affecting Canada? Well, it's a good news/bad news type of situation. The good news is that it's probably not an indicator of end times, and we hopefully aren't being punished by a wrathful God who's mad at us for giving the Kardashians so much airtime. However, the bad news is that it may be old aeroplane poop.
Susan Allan actually had to go to the doctor after being hit by the falling poop, as the substance had caused conjunctivitis in both her eyes. During her medical assessment, Allan's doctor found a small burn on her eye which was caused by something called "liquid blue" - a chemical used to freeze human waste in aeroplanes and other vehicles.
Planes do not dump waste while in mid-air, though, so - if they are the cause - a faulty sewage valve is probably what's responsible. And yet, Transport Canada said the sky faeces doesn’t "meet the description of blue ice" and have stated that none of the 18 reported cases of poop rain are related to planes.
Some people have suggested that birds are responsible, but Allan doesn't believe it. "It would have taken a thousand flocks of birds to fly over all at once to cover my car as much as it was covered," she said.
At this time, then, nobody is quite sure what's causing the falling poop. My advice? Steer clear of large flocks of birds or overhead planes if possible, especially if you're in Canada.