"RED RAIN."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 282, 28 November 1929, Page 11

"RED RAIN."

PHENOMENON IN BLENHEIM. ARTTM LILIES TINTED. i f; ORIGIN STILL UNCERTAIN. • (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) j BLENHEIM, this day. Blenheim yesterday was deluged with ''red rain," a phenomenon which made itself evident by tinting such delicate flowers as arum lilies a delicate pink, and leaving a rust-like deposit upon the foliage of plants, on windows and motor ears, and along the top rails of fences. A woman at Earn ham, who left a week's washing on the line found it so streaked with red that she will have to wash it again. Some months ago the appearance of "red rain" in Blenheim and other parts of the Dominion was attributed to a dust storm in Australia, the theory being put forward that great clouds of red dust had been blown across the Tasman at a high altitude, and had fallen over New Zealand. It is considered by some people that yesterday's phenomenon might be accounted for by the extraordinary electrical disturbance which ■was ushered in at dawn. The theory is advanced that a meteor or a 'bunder T bolt burst over Blenheim, filling the sky with minute particles of red dust, which later drifted to earth with the rain.