Case file · High strangeness
Peiresc explains the 'blood rain' of Aix
In July 1608, red spots on walls around Aix-en-Provence were taken as a 'rain of blood' and a divine warning; the scholar Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc showed they came from butterflies.
1608 CE · 43.53, 5.45 · status: explained
The account
Peiresc kept a chrysalis and saw the emerging butterfly leave a red drop (meconium). The spots appeared where butterflies had swarmed, not on open roofs, as rain would.