Late last week a small town deep in Australia’s Northern Territory, Lajamanu, experienced a downpour of biblical proportions.

This was, however, not a torrential downpour of rain. Thousands of fish poured from the skies above the village.

Thousands of spangled perch, found commonly in the waterways of the northern territory, bombarded the residents, shocking locals.

Resident Christine Balmer described the scene: “Hundreds and hundreds of fish landed in the town. Locals were picking them up off the ground everywhere.”

She added: “These fish were alive when they hit the ground – thank God it didn’t rain crocodiles.”

The fish are common throughout much of the northern territory and will live in any large body of still or flowing water.

Lajamanu, however, is on the edge of the Australian desert, over 300 miles away from the nearest river or lake.

An explanation has been offered for this strange occurence. As unlikely as it sounds, Meteorologists from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology suggest that a tornado could have sucked the fish high into the air, up to 50,000ft, before dropping them hundreds of miles from their point of origin.

Mark Kersemakers of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said: “Once they get up into the weather system they are pretty much frozen and after some time they are released.”

This phenomenon has been observed before, in the early 1980s there were reports of similar occurrences in the area. Historically similar cases have been reported. In 1969 golf balls fell from the sky in Florida, and again in 1976 .