There has been many reports of people seeing images in hailstones. With a good imagination we can see a face on the front of a car. However, this account undoubtly happened. The only explanation for the images on these hailstones is miraculous.

"Monsieur le Cure, come quickly...they are melting!" Mlle. Marie Andre called out to the pastor of Saint-Etienne-les-Remiremont. It was the evening of Trinty Sunday, 1908, the pastor had settled in for the evening and began reading "a large and heavy treatise on geology". He had read no more than a few pages on the formation of ice when it began to hail outside.

Mlle. Marie Andre had picked up two of the stones and rushed in to show them to the L`Abbe`Gueniot. Here is his account of what he saw.

"Look," she said to me,"here is the image of Our Lady of the Treasure printed on the hailstones." "Come,come,"I said, "do not tell me these silly tales." In order to satisfy her, I glanced carelessly at two hailstones which she held in her hand. But, since I did not want to see anything, and, moreover, could not do so without spectacles, I turned away to go back to my book. She urged "I beg of you to put on your glasses." I did so, and saw very distinctly on the front of the hailstones, which were slightly convex in the center, although the edges were somewhat worn, the bust of a woman, with a robe turned up at the bottom like a priest's cope. I should, perhaps, describe it more exactly by saying that it was like the Virgin of the Hermits. The outlines of the images were slightly hollow, as though they had been formed with a punch, but were very boldly drawn.

Mlle. Andre asked me to notice certain details of the costume, but I refused to look at it any longer. I was ashamed of my credulity, feeling sure that the Blessed Virgin would hardly concern herself with instantaneous photographs on hailstones. I said:"But do you not see that these hailstones must have fallen on vegetables, and thus recieved these impressions? Take them away, they are no good to me." I returned to my book, without giving any further attention to what had happened.

But my mind was disturbed by the singular formation of these hailstones. I picked up three, in order to weigh them, without lookin at them closely. They weighed between six and seven ounces. One of them was perfectly round, like balls with which children play, and had a seam around it as though it had been cast in a mould. (Note: this is not unusual)

During my supper (I was alone) I said to myself: "All the same, these hailstones are of unusual shape, and the imprint on the two I examined was so regular that it can hardly have been due to chance."

But I quickly stiffened myself against all thought of the supernatual, and was ashamed of having entertained it for a moment.

When the storm passed the pastor went outside to assess the damage. Suprisingly the garden was unharmed, however, eleswhere in the area damage had occured. (The storm appeared to have two kinds of stones destructive and undestructive.) The priest hypthosized that the stones had only dropped from a few yards. "What appeared worthy of notice was that the hailstones, which ought to have been violently precipitated to the ground in accordance with the laws of accleration of the speed of falling bodies, appeared to have fallen from the height of but a few yards, and to have only accquired the initial velocity of a fallen body."

Toward half-past seven the news was spread about in the vicinity of the presbytery that many persons had observed the image of Our Lady of the Treasure on the hailstones, and that a number of them were in the form of medallions. Children had collected them in their aprons, and shown them to their parents, who had verified the presence of the same image. Some even saw small details, such as the Virgin's crown, the Child Jesus, the fringes of the robe. Was this the result of imagination?

But, apart from these details, there is no doubt that the greater part of the hailstones which were examined bore distinctly the images of Our Lady of the Treasure.

The following morning the milkmen, on returning from Remiremont, reported that many persons in the town had observed the same thing.

The following Sunday 50 people signed a petition "thourghly convinced of the truth of their explanation that because the town council had forbidden "maginificent procession which was in preparation the artillery of heaven caused a vertical procession which no one could forbid."

English Mechanic and World of Science, 87:436, June 12, 1908

This isn't the first report, a similar rain of hailstones rained on Dordrecht, Holland in 1552. This is a translation of the orginal transcript.

A Prodigiously Huge Hailstone

In the year 1552- Friday the 17th of may between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon there was a particularly violent thunderstorm in a certain Dutch town called Dordrecht, driving the inhabitants in terror into their houses as if the world were comming to an end, because for more than half an hour there was a steady bombardment of horrible hailstones, so that every garden and orchard was destroyed. Some of the hailstones had a natural shape of a sun. On others appeared a crown of thorns. Some weighed as much as half a pound. The water from these hailstones smelled as if it were boiling water. This hailstorm was followed by a foul-smelling cloud. It is a wonder what such signs may signify. But that is known to Almighty God alone. May he protect us in Christ. Amen.

---

[HOME][ANOMALIES][UFOs][INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION][LOST CITIES][PROPHECIES][MIRACLES][STRANGE COINCIDENCES][MESSAGE BOARDS][PAST WEB POLLS]