OROVILLE, CA (KHSL/CNN) - Kindergartners in Oroville, CA, got quite a surprise at recess: fish that rained down.
A school employee, Liz Barber-Gabriel, set the scene.
"We came out here at the second recess for all the kindergartners and all the sudden the kids start yelling really loud, 'look at this. look at this.'" she said.
It started out as a typical Tuesday at the Stanford Avenue Elementary School.
Then, just before noon, the campus was suddenly littered with fish.
"We couldn't figure out it out," she said. "They weren't any other place except all on the playground, in the drinking fountain, in the rubber, everywhere."
A custodian who climbed up on the roof found dozens more fish there.
Principal Shannon Capshew said that her first concern was who was on the campus that she didn't know about.
"Were they playing a trick, or angry with somebody?" she said. "The campus supervisors out there didn't see any adults, and we were out there the whole time so we kind of ruled that one out."
So if it wasn't trespassers, could the fish have literally fallen from the sky?
Years back there was an account of raining trout in Chico, CA.
But a representative for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife says there were no deliveries that day.
They believe the fish to be a type of carp, a warm water fish that may be found in the Thermalito Afterbay but not in the nearby Feather River.
One of their wardens joined in on solving this puzzle.
No word yet from the DWR, but there may be a real chance that it really did "rain" fish.
There's a weather phenomenon where objects can get sucked up from lakes or the ocean by waterspouts during a storm.
If the wind is strong enough, it can carry fish or other creatures for miles before dropping them.
No waterspouts or funnel clouds were detected in the area the day the incident occurred.
Copyright 2017 KHSL via CNN. All rights reserved.
